Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries
by WellBattle6
Summary: "We lived in a different time, a different world, and now, we are the newcomers. We are a nation born from fire, from sacrifice, Valkyria." The sudden appearance of the monolithic tower floating on the sea off the coast of Japan has heralded the beginning, a new era. Ichika and friends must now face a tidal wave that may change the history of IS forever, for better or.. for worse.
1. Chapter 1 - The First Step

_Hello everyone, this is the first piece of work that I've done in a while. I recently started watching Infinite Stratos Season 2 (haven't actually watched season one, but I've heard that aside from Laura the characters haven't changed much) and decided to act on a few ideas I had. Please review after as I aim to improve on my creative writing, even if you think a section of it is terrible. This story involves universe/dimensional jumping and takes place after the light novels (if I'm wrong that Ichika and friends could be in the third year after the light novels, please notify me in your review right away, I'll pull off a little timeline magic since nothings concrete yet). Any updates/corrections I make in the future will be mentioned after this section here -:_

_Changed AGERs to AGES, some grammatical corrections made._

**Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries Chapter One – The First Step**

"Hold the line!" yelled a soldier, covered in a dark grey trench coat with a blue tinge and wearing a gas mask.

Fire burst forth from a nearby hovering armoured vehicle. The soldier threw himself onto the hard asphalt ground as a fragment of a wrecked gun barrel flies over his head, tearing through a nearby tree before imbedding itself into the side of a house.

"Artillery support incoming, sir," reported a Legionnaire, an advanced 'true' AI robotic trooper, through the Battle Communication Network. As the soldier registers the message, a flash on his Heads Up Display appears, showing the estimated area of affect of the artillery shells. With a huge wail, active guided Earthshaker Shells fired from rail artillery stationed on the tower looming over the city landed on the ground ahead of him. Explosions reduced the suburban area ahead into debris, affectively decimating the enemy units.

"Charlie, command has given the order to retreat within the borders of the tower, the universal warp charge is ready," said a synthesized male voice in his head.

"I copy Nav," replied Charlie. "All troops fall back to within the borders of the tower. We're getting out of here."

He turned around and sprinted at inhuman speeds, passing the Legionnaires. Activating a jetpack on his back, he flew onto the nearest apartment building on the outskirts of the dense urban areas. Taking out a long barrelled rifle from a weapon slot at the side of his jetpack, he released the safeties and allowed the rifle to charge up. Energy pulsed within the rifle as a rectangular scope rose from within the rifle into position. Aiming at an enemy, the targeting system in the scope causes the aiming dot in the sector to turn red. He zoomed onto the head, a yellow glowing four-eyed creature in red carapace armour that looked like a demon themed Murloc. He then fired.

A blast of energy burst from his rifle in the form of plasma, travelling at extremely high velocities thanks to the projectile acceleration system in the rifle. The head of the creature exploded, causing the rest of its body to lift of the ground and traveling 6 meters backwards. Charlie targeted the next creature, firing the lightweight semi-automatic plasma rail rifle at 2 shots a second as he gave covering suppression for the retreating forces. When several transport gunships, Valkyries, flew past him, he stowed the rifle back on his back, and used his jetpack to take off after them. As he got closer to the tower borders, he could see large burning fireballs blowing up on energy shield underneath it and the true magnitude of the size of the tower was made apparent. It was metallic red and massive, supported on four legs on the four corners of the city, so tall that the top of it was above the clouds. A flash on his HUD alerted him to a 90 second countdown till the warp. When he and the transports passed through the citywide shield, the countdown was at 10 seconds. After landing on the checkpoint bridge separating the main city from the mainland, Charlie could only look behind him for what seemed like an eternity as the final wave of transports flew through the shield against the orange nuked background. He caught a glimpse of three more nukes going off in the far distance, the light bright enough to blind anyone not wearing an anti-glare visor, which for him was built into the lens of his metal gas mask. Then, Charlie's world flipped outside down when the countdown reached zero.

An extremely bright blue light outshone even the light from the nuclear explosions, reducing Charlie's vision to whiteness as he was knocked back onto the ground. Tremors caused vibrations to shake through his body, causing the ground to rumble like an earthquake. The city trees swayed around, with a few power lines toppling over. His senses were overloaded and he could not think as he just kept his eyes shut. Then, it suddenly stopped.

Opening his eyes, Charlie saw something that he didn't see for two whole years, a pale blue sky. Getting up and helping a nearby Valkyrian soldier up to her feet. He heard calm rushing waves washing up along the checkpoint, the bridge having seemingly disappeared with only a cut off road proving its location, which was a stark contrast to the violent tides that beaches and docks were subject to. A cry from an animal brought his attention to the sky, and seeing a white bird with an orange beak. Nav determined it to be a seagull, which as Charlie recalled was supposed to be extinct at least five years ago. This calm, serene moment was then interrupted by a video call in his helmet. He answered it.

"Charlie, everything all right at the bottom of the tower?" spoke a man in his late forties. A military trim haircut that awkwardly contrasted with the business suit the man was wearing. The man's name was Bill Sharp, Charlie's uncle.

Charlie looked back from the waterfront inwards towards the downtown core of the city. Most of the above ground tower lines had fallen, with some vehicles crushed under them. Fire hydrants had broken and water was pouring forth as soldiers and Legionnaires rushed to try to repair the damage. "There's damage all over the city, but nothing irreparable or irreplaceable within a month Sir. What about on the top of the tower?"

Bill sighed, "Better than the predictions were, and Charlie, I don't think you'll have to call me sir again, the readings show that we have escaped that universe and thus the war. We finally have peace."

At that moment, tears suddenly began to well up in Charlie's eyes. The reality of the moment had just fully come to him. The number of sacrifices that had been given for this moment, they weren't for nothing. Seven years of hardship. They had finally done it, humanity was preserved, and he finally finished keeping his promise.

"Charlie?"

"Yeah, I'm just feeling really happy, that's all. Really, really happy," replied Charlie.

"Well, take the Laurentian elevator back up to central command, I want you to be there when we launch the observation and communications satellite."

"Yes sir."

"Charlie."

"I mean… uncle."

Right after the video transition disconnected, Charlie lifted his metal gas mask onto the top of his helmet like a visor and rubbed his eyes with his black leather glove hands.

"Well, that was a nice moment," remarked Nav, "for a few seconds before that I thought that we would be discontinued."

"Yeah, I guess… well Nav, we should get going." Charlie started walking at a brisk pace towards one of the two central columns containing the tower lifts.

"Miss Dunois would have been happy for you operator."

Charlie paused mid step with a faint flicker of regret crossing his face.

"Indeed Nav… Indeed."

_Meanwhile, just 1000 km away._

Ichika raised Yukihara to block Tatenashi's Rusty Nail. At the last second before the blades met together, the blade of the Rusty Nail somehow curved around the Yukihara. Ichika quickly dodged to the side, but not before the Rusty Nail slashed the right side of his IS, bring his last 10% of shields to zero. Ichika groaned as he once against lost to the ISA's student council president the representative of Russia. He waited for the forthcoming lecture on his mistakes, which was indeed coming towards him.

"Ichika-san, your movements are still too predictable. Sometimes it's better to evade the incoming attack completely," stated Tatenashi.

In fact, it appeared that Tatenashi had fifteen minutes of lecturing in her mind, when the school wide PA system turned on.

"Attention please, would all students with personal ISs come to Orimura-sensei's office. This meeting takes priority over all activities.

"We'll continue this talk later," stated Tatenashi as she dragged Ichika over to their meeting place.

_Chifuyu Orimura's office_

"Everyone, thank you for coming on such short notice," said Chifuyu to the group. "Yamada-sensei, if you please."

Yamada-sensei turned on a monitor on a wall of the room to a news channel. The live video that appeared showed an extremely tall red structure in the ocean visible from the city. The tagline read, "Mysterious tower suddenly appears of the coast of Japan." The news reporter was saying a few words.

"Just about 30 minutes ago just one week after the 2nd school term has started, if you walked up to the waterfront and looked across the water, you may have been surprised to see this red tall structure that reaches into the cloud layer. It was detected by the government after what appeared to be a satellite launch from the unidentified structure, and shortly after by pedestrians in the waterfront vicinity. Although we reached out to the government for info, we have not received any word from the government about it. After the break, we will discuss people's theories about it."

Suddenly, a pair of fighter jets could be seen soaring across the sky towards the tower. Yamada-sensei turned off the monitor at that moment.

"Given the size and magnitude of the unidentified structure, we must assume that the entities, if there are any present in the tower, must be technologically superior and have deep pockets," Chifuyu stated, "The nations of the world have all being alerted to its presence. The government wants us to be on standby and provide support should any hostile situations occur. If that indeed happens, be prepared for anything."

Everyone was shocked by this event. A mega structure suddenly appearing in the ocean out of the blue? Laura was about to say something when Chifuyu's cell phone rang. She picked it up.

"This is Chifuyu speaking… Yes… Yes… I understand. We'll be right over there. Yes sir, right away." She hanged up. Speaking to the group, she said, "It appears that the government have managed to contact the unknown group. In fact, the government was contacted as soon as the military jets were within viewing range of the tower. The people of the structure have immediately prepared a delegation to meet at the nearby military base. We are to be part of the welcoming party there. No questions until we get to our destination."

_Later in an aircraft near the military base_

The military class Valkyrie Model 24 dropship flew closer to its destination. It was in coloured in a blue hue to signal its delegation passengers. On each of the sides were the national Valkyrian wings insignia in black along its side. The noise level within the aircraft was about as loud as in the cabin of a 2017 Boeing Dreamliner.

"Reaching our destination sirs," reported the pilot through the comm. Charlie adjusted his grip on the dropship's ceiling handles while looking through Nav's analysis of the coastal architecture and defenses. Looking through it, Charlie realized that they were very similar to the cities that once existed before the beginning of the Great War. In fact, Charlie pondered over the name of the city gathered from the observation and communications satellite, the city was named the exact same name as one of the nuked cities. He noticed a fairly large building on top of a man-made island that had no counterpart in the Valkryian version of the city. Reading the nametag, it was called the Infinite Stratos Academy, or ISA for short. Checking it out in detail, it appeared that it was an internationalized school funded by it's controlling state, Japan/Nippon/Nihon/日本, that trains girls from around the world to pilot ISs. Looking into the definition of the IS, Charlie found that they were basically military class flight capable mech suits that could only be controlled by woman and they represented the highest samples of technology that the world had to offer.

"If only females can use this technology, than life here must suck for males in this world's society," commented Nav, "But the good news is that since your body is a…"

"Shut up Nav," interrupted Charlie in a sharp voice, "Do you want me to disable your voice box?"

"Fine then, I won't comment about how comparable you are to a certain group of meat sacs."

"Nav, what's the estimated military threat the locals hold against us?" said Charlie in an irritated voice.

"55.6% likely to attack should any 'misunderstandings' occur and 8.9% likely to pose a true military threat in combat," reported Nav. The AI allowed Bill to hear this. Bill was the representative delegate for Valkyria. He was chosen since being the CEO of Valkyria's largest corporation, Collosus, and ex-military he held a lot of power and understood the inner workings of the Valkyrian government.

"With a TMT statistic that low, it should prove no problem for security then, but the locals sure seem trigger happy," remarked Bill.

"Well it is true that the threat is weak compared to what the Murlocs offered. But my calculations can cause the threat level to jump by an entire 30% if the data on these 'ISs' are true."

"Why is that?" asked Bill.

"The military grade level of these mech suits is remarkably similar to operator Charlie's Sturmtruppen equipment. Though of course, the flaws that exist in them are about 50% more exploitable in combat and the defense system is about 215% weaker. Then I also have to factor in the inexperience our forces have in dealing with multiple units similar to Sturmtruppen," replied Nav.

"Interesting," commented Charlie.

"In that case, the grenadiers better keep their fingers off the safety and trigger. Or this could get a little messy," said Bill loud enough that the entire entourage could hear.

_At the military base_

Everyone in the group could see the navy blue coloured flying aircraft from a very long distance away even without optical zoom lenses. A bright blue streak instead of a white streak could be appeared out of what was assumed the aircraft's jets. Its design was similar to aircrafts seen in science fiction. As the aircraft approached the landing pad, the twin propulsion system of the aircraft rotated like a harrier and glided down. Laura could not help but be impressed by the technological standard the unknown state's air force had. The two sliding doors on either side of the craft opened, allowing soldiers wielding some sort of rifles with woodland camouflage patterned armour to get out first. Laura immediately recognized the rifles as being similar than her rail gun, but being the about the size of rifles like the M1 Garand. The soldiers swiftly formed a defensive circle around the aircraft as behind them, a grey trench coat like uniformed soldier with a metal gas mask, which reminded Laura of late WW1 era, uniforms her country used. She quickly deduced that the masked trooper was of elite status given his position to a man in a suit who was probably the dignitary and the vastly different uniform he war. The difference was that a backpack seemed to be outfitted with a jetpack based propulsion system and a golden V shaped insignia was painted onto the helmet. She noticed that on the left shoulders of all the soldiers was the same black coloured wings found on the sides of the aircraft. Looking back at the dignitary and his personal guard, she noticed that they were both glancing at Charlotte, with a hint of a shocked expression noticeable on the man in the suit's face. It disappeared as quickly as it came and he tapped on the shoulder of the bodyguard, causing the bodyguard to quickly turn away and look towards the approaching Japanese delegation as if nothing happened. Laura made a note to ask Charlotte if she knew anything about them. In the meanwhile, Chifuyu was standing beside the Japanese dignitary as the two delegations introduced themselves. Chifuyu, the Japanese dignitary, the elite soldier, and the unknown dignitary were escorted by their respective security into a nearby building. About 5 of the unknown group's soldiers including the pilot remained with the transport. Keeping her distance with the other IS pilots from the main group, she quickly followed them into the building.

Entering it, she was surprised to find that all of the security had were waiting outside of an indoor tarp tent in a large open convention like room rather than inside a true conference room. Chifuyu was talking with the elite soldier directly outside of the tent's entrance. Laura amplified her sound detection towards them and listened into the conversation, which presumably everyone else was doing as well. They were talking in English, which Laura knew well enough to understand.

"So Charlie, is your uncle in your nations military?" asked Chifuyu to the soldier, who Laura now knew was apparently Charlie.

"Actually, he's ex-military. He's now CEO of Valkyria's most valuable corporation, Colossus, and I predict that that will be the only corporation you'll hear about for a while," replied Charlie. "What's your relationship to your principal?"

Chifuyu paused before speaking, "An acquaintance."

"New or old?"

"Old."

"You do know that this conversation is being recorded by almost everyone here right?"

"Yes, but how would you know?"

"Because that's what I'm doing, and then I'm getting multiple warnings from my HUD that my voice is being tracked."

"You're being very direct in your answers you know."

"Only when none of this information can allow people to increase their threat level to my principal." Charlie paused. "By the way, I was wondering whether you know the name of the short blond haired girl."

"I do, her name's Charlotte Dunois. Why? Are you into her?"

Charlie chuckled, though the gas mask caused it to sound a bit unnatural, "Of course not Miss Orimura. It's just that she reminded me of someone else."

"Isn't that what all guys say as a pickup line?"

"And I thought that most girls wouldn't know that since the main school system here seems to be single gender based."

This time Chifuyu laughed, "And how did you know that, given you just randomly showed up in the ocean just one and a half hours ago?"

"Now that's a secret I won't tell. But I can hint that the local history databases were most certainly involved."

At that moment, the two dignitaries stepped out of the tent. They shook hands and parted, with the foreign party heading off and leaving within ten minutes.

Laura approached Chifuyu as the transport parted into the far distance. "Orimura-sensei, what did that soldier mean by Valkyria?"

Chifuyu replied, "Well Laura-san, Valkyria is apparently the name of the nation state that's located directly underneath the tower."

"Interesting," remarked Laura.

_Three weeks later_

Orimura-sensei got the classes attention in the early morning. "Attention students, we have a guest who will be observing and participating in our lessons for the rest of the year. He is NOT a student and cannot control an IS, but you will treat him with the upmost respect never less as an equal."

Immediately whispers came from the rolls of girls.

"A boy?"

"He's participating?

"How can someone participate in the training spars without an IS?"

"Maybe he's just participating in the normal subjects outside of IS training."

A figure wearing a fully grey commissar uniform (without a cloak mind you), with a metal gas mask strapped onto his head stepped to the front center of the class and bowed, speaking in fluent Japanese. "Hello, my name is Charlie Sharp and I will be participating with you all in ALL types of classes. I do apologize for not removing my hat or my visor, but you must understand that I'm not currently authorized by my government to reveal my full identity until later."

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh!"

_And there you have it, the first chapter, almost 3000 words long. After reading a few fanficts from the other stories based on Infinite Stratos, I decided to put a twist on the introduction of people, in which the girls scream in confusion not because there's another guy who can pilot an IS, but because he's wearing a freaking gasmask and won't be seen without it for a while. Now moving forward I have already planned out a few chapters ahead, but I need feedback in order to determine the type of endgame you all prefer, so please review._


	2. Chapter 2 - Shock and Awe

**Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries Chapter Two – Shock and Awe**

After the shocking reveal the school got from a guy who's full identity can't be revealed and can't pilot an IS participating in the combat classes. The school is in commotion as soon as Charlie left for his private room set up at the request of the Valkyrian government, which happened to be located right next to Ichika's room, its previous occupants having moved out to another wing of the campus.

Closing and locking the door behind him, Charlie immediately closed all of blinds of the unit. He quickly checked the rooms for any bugs and made sure that nothing was missing from his luggage that got delivered there by Miss Yamada. Taking out an unmarked black box, he opened it to reveal surveillance equipment, plugging it into an outlet, putting it on a desk, unfolding the antennae, and turning it on before removing his hat and gasmask.

"You sure did cause a commotion back there, Charlie," remarked a voice in his head.

"I'm sure Miss Orimura can handle the class Nav. You can't become a teacher if you can't control the students."

"Also, I've picked up text messages from the local data traffic, it appears that the girls are figuring out the location of your room. Oh goodness, they've already found out."

"Great, now I have to deal with stalkers for at least a week."

"Well, you are experiencing every male meat sac's dream. But then off course you're not a meat…"

"And then off course, that specific dream is a double edged sword. I better go hang up the sign outside the door."

Unlocking the door and opening it, Charlie taped a sign on the door that read in Japanese and English, "Warning, under the new Pacific Peace Agreements, specifically Section 8.6, it is illegal to enter a Valkyrian diplomatic room without prior permission from the diplomat. Overruled by cases in Section 8.7. This room is considered by the Japanese and Valkyrian governments to be a pseudo-embassy, and coming in illegally is considered an act of spying, which will be punished severely (see Section 8.8 for more information on punishments)."

"Don't you think those rules are going a bit far considering the agreement's made with the other local states on the planet?" asked Nav.

"Well, when encountering a nation that could become a threat more powerful than the security council combined can handle, you have to compromise."

'Beep. Beep.'

Charlie checked his watch, oh my, it's already lunchtime. I suppose I'll get the take-out now.

"You're also the only person allowed to eat the cafeteria food without being a student or staff in this academy."

Charlie sarcastically replied, "Well, lucky me," as he put back on his hat and gasmask and opened the door to leave.

_IS Academy cafeteria_

Entering through the cafeteria entrance, Charlie was met by stares from every corner of the room.

"It appears you already have a fanclub," observed Nav.

Charlie quickly ordered his food, salmon teriyaki with rice, and got a ticket stamp to wait for the kitchen staff to finish cooking it and pack it. He went to grab a can of Nestea but decided against it until the rest of the food could be picked up. Looking around, he spotted Ichika motioning over to his table.

"Hello everyone," he said as he sat down beside Ichika with a long blond haired girl to his left. He noticed Charlotte in front of him and turned away.

"You're Charlie Sharp, the nephew of Bill Sharp, CEO of Colossus Corporation, and a rank Lord Captain Sturmtruppen," stated a girl with long silver hair.

"Exactly what was told to the Japanese government, but I wonder whether you know what my position does?"  
Laura shook her head as if she was ashamed that her information was already public knowledge. "Only that it's an elite division of troops and your rank is similar to Captain. I have no idea why the 'Lord' was added on to your rank since your army does have regular Captains.

"Well, the role of Sturmtruppen fulfills the roles of elite commando shock troops. We engage in behind enemy line and black operations as well as perform frontline assault missions. My rank, Lord Captain means that I have seniority over regular Captains and that I only respond to the commands of higher rank officers with the added Lord term in their rank. The Lord ranking section of the Valkyrian military is placed directly under the control of the Lord Minister, who is similar to Japan's Prime Minister in status."

The Chinese girl asked Charlie a question. "What's the point of letting your country's leader have control of a large section of the military? Couldn't the Lord Minister abuse the power given to her?"

"It's 'him' currently, actually. Since our state did not have IS technology that was mainly restricted to women, Valkyria is, sadly, a male dominated society at about 0.93 against the score of total equality at 1. The purpose of having a large section of the military directly overseen by the Lord Minister is to prevent a military coup like the one that resulted in a civil war in Valkyria's parent state. However, the regular military is still large enough to keep the Lord Minister in check."

Charlie turned back towards Laura. "You must be Laura Bodewig, rank Captain of the German army, spent active service with the Schwarze Hase, pilot the IS Schwarzer Regen, born as a test tube baby to be a super soldier, and had your left eye disabled due to an experimental surgery involving nanobots. Speaking of which." Charlie took out an eyedropper bottle and put it in front of Laura.

"Take it," he said to Laura. She hesitated. "Go on, take it."

As Laura took the eyedropper bottle, Charlie explained what it was for. The eyedropper bottle is filled with water containing nanobots produced by the Valkyrian Nanotechnology Division. After checking over your records and a detailed blueprint of the German made nanobots, they produced ones that would be able to turn them off and turn them back on whenever you blink three times quickly. Affectively allowing you to control when you want to turn it on and off like it was originally intended."

"You're not joking are you?"

"Of course not, what kind of sick joke would that be. I swear on my honour that it will work because I have full confidence in my government."

Laura pulled up her eye patch, revealing the yellow artificial eye. She dripped a drop of the liquid onto the eye and blinked.

"Give it a few more drops and some seconds to allow the nanobots to spread out across the Hypersensor."

A few more drops later, Laura's eye suddenly turned from yellow to red after a few blinks.

"Is it working the way it should?"

Laura blinked several more times and consistently switched it from yellow to red.

"…It works," Laura looks at the eyedropper with wonder, then suddenly reaches out over the table and hugs Charlie, "Thank you so much!"

"Whoa, no need to thank me, I'm just doing my job," replied a surprised and obviously uncomfortable Charlie. He had immediately stiffened when Laura reached over the table. "A shipment of the nanobots was already sent to the German military, so your fellows in the Schwarze Hase should be getting them soon." After Laura pulled away and stuffed the eye patch into her pocket, the long blond haired girl made an observation.

"Wait you said that your government had Laura-san's files."

"Well actually, Cecilia Alcott, I did receive a copy of the records off everyone at this table."

"But why would they get them," asked Lingyin Huang.

"That's just the way of business," replied Charlie.

"By the way," said Ichika, "do any of you remember what we have next period?"

Charlie gave an answer right away, "We have IS combat duels next and then Combined Arms Tactics tomorrow morning."

Charlotte Dunois asked Charlie a question, "Combined Arms Tactics? We never had a course called that before."

"Of course not, it's a brand new course, I'm teaching it," replied Charlie.

"Whaat!" exclaimed the group.

"Well, I do have three full years in the field in total war, so I do believe I know enough to teach you all a thing or two. Orimura-sensei and the school board approved it. There are holographic projectors set up in the arena. Should be fun."

"Wait, what total war?" asked Houki Shinonono.

A call from the kitchen alerted Charlie to his food being ready. "I'll tell you all later."

_IS Academy arena_

Charlie found himself standing stiffly at attention in an ordered row with the other students in the class. Chifuyu was standing in front of them about to give them their instructions. He could feel the other members of the group desperately trying to avoid staring at him.

Chifuyu spoke up, "Now, you may be wondering why Sharp-san has joined us today for IS combat duels even though he can't pilot an IS. Well, his government has requested a combat duel to see how his skills as a Sturmtruppen will fare against one of us, which our government has accepted, though truthfully I haven't received enough details as to not remain a bit sceptical of this decision. I've been informed however, that Sharp-san does have shielding equipment, which can be monitored, so we can go ahead with it without delay. To start off today's class, he will be facing Ichika while the rest of you observe from the stands. Ichika, I want you to go easy on him since this is the first time we've had a match between an IS pilot and a non-IS combatant."

Charlie lifted his arm up. "Permission to speak sensei."

"Permission granted."

"With all due respect Orimura-sensei, I wish to wait until the actual duel is underway before we make any decisions to have Ichika 'go easy' on me."

A faint smile formed on Chifuyu's lips. "Very well than Sharp-san. Ichika, please fight him normally, but take caution during the first few seconds. I don't want Sharp-san to go across the sea back to the tower in a body bag, and I certainly don't want YOU to leave this academy prematurely either."

A look of alarm crossed Ichika's face from that last statement his sister made.

"Class, go to your positions."

_Later_

Ichika was hovering in the middle of the arena in Byakushiki waiting for his opponent to arrive. Charlie had gone up to the observation room to ensure that the monitoring system was working correctly. Thinking back to what his sister had said earlier, he was wondering whether he should be worried for himself. He was certainly worried for Charlie, but Chifuyu's final comment had fazed him. There was a roar of sound as a figure flew into the arena and stopped in front of him. Ichika immediately recognized it as the military trench coat like armour that Charlie was wearing during the delegations. Unlike his IS's wings, a flare of whitish blue jets could be seen coming out from Charlie's propulsion system, which Ichika thought was almost definitely the first jetpack he saw.

"Are you ready Ichika-kun?" came the voice from beneath the metal dark grey gas mask. Charlie brought his arm up to the pack behind him and withdrew an infantry sized rifle about 47 inches long. It certainly didn't look intimidating like an IS sized sniper rifle, but Byakushiki's HUD alerted him to the identification of an unknown model rail gun.

"More importantly, are you sure you want to do this?" Ichika replied as he summoned Yukihara out, the long beam sabre seeming to equal the length of Charlie himself. Charlie nodded with confidence, no motion in his body language that seemed to indicate doubt.

"Attention duellists, you may now begin whenever you are ready," came the voice of Yamada-sensei.

Ichika immediately raised Yukihara with to hands and flew towards Charlie with lightning speed, intending to drain Charlie's shields two zero with an overhead slash and end it quickly. To his surprise, the Sturmtruppen strafed right and dogged the blade effortlessly with the movements of a professional IS pilot. He pointed the rifle with two hands towards Ichika and fired.

A bright light blue ball of energy tore through the air with immense speed. Ichika only had enough time to dodge to the side while the projectile grazed his shields, dropping the energy levels by an astonishing 30% for a grazed shot. He was forced to increase the distance between the distance between himself and Charlie as 5 more shots came went through his last position at half-second intervals.

"That was a bad idea Ichika, my semi-automatic plasma rail rifle excels at long range, and you've just lost your melee distance advantage," stated Charlie as he squeezed of a few more rounds in his direction.

Ichika realized that Charlie was right, as the rounds seemed to get closer towards him no matter how he dogged. He was bound to end up taking another hit at some point if he stayed at his current distance. Then, he thought of a plan that just might work. Flying high up above Charlie, he suddenly dived towards him with Yukihara in hand, intending to use the carefully positioned sun behind him to blind his opponent. He spiralled around to dodge shots while keeping his advantage from the glare, as he got ever closer towards his opponent. However…

A powerful electric shock went through his entire IS as his shield energy dipped by 5%, which was minimal compared to the other effect of a tomahawk shaped object caught into his wings. A notice on his HUD informed him that his wings had temporarily stopped working as he began to free-fall towards Charlie. During the few precious seconds while his wing systems rebooted, Charlie strafed backwards and fired an unavoidable shot. The plasma slammed into his shields, reducing his energy down to 10% and causing him to be pushed backwards from the kinetic energy, crashing down into the arena wall directly in front of the numerous spectators that had gathered to watch the match in a puff of dust. When the dust cleared, Ichika stared straight into the barrel of the plasma rail rifle as his energy meter confirmed that the last 10% of energy had drained. Charlie stowed away the weapon onto the back of his jetpack and offered out a hand to him. Ichika took it.

"You alright man?"

Getting up to his feet, Ichika glanced behind him at the hole in the wall and nodded. Charlie plucked the tomahawk lodged into his wings and put it on a utility belt, which carried several different types of grenades and some type of pistol with magazine clips. Ichika then noticed a combat knife slotted upwards into a sheath connected to the shoulder armour of Charlie's suit with English words inscribed into the blade handle that Ichika, regrettably couldn't understand.

"Attention please, the match has concluded with Sharp-kun as the winner."

Ichika's friends immediately got off from the stands and came down into the arena. Then, they swarmed Ichika and asked whether he was all right.

_IS Academy cafeteria during dinner_

The group had gathered around the usual table they ate at, Charlie having already picked up his dinner but deciding to join them to talk. Ichika head was down on the table in his arms and groaning as a result of a kick to the head after tripping up on the stairs and landing underneath Houki's skirt. Charlie felt a bit sorry for the guy, but at the same time it was his fault for being so clumsy.

"Hey Charlie, has any of the other girls gone after you yet? Ichika and Charlotte as 'Charlie' never seemed to have a second off when they first came here," asked Cecilia.

Charlie shook his head, contrary to Nav's prediction, he didn't experience anything more than some glances from the other students as he walked passed them through the hallway. "It's probably my gasmask that frightens everyone away. I'm surprised no one has attempted to ask me questions about my country."

Laura spoke, "Anyways, even though I was observing the match with my Hypersensor turned on, that axe you threw was going incredibly fast, even I would have had trouble dodging that."

"See! Even you won't ask questions about my country!"

"Eh? Do you want me to ask you about your country instead?"

"Sorry Laura, that was meant to be a joke. I'm perfectly fine with answering your first question," quickly replied Charlie. He reached down to his waist and pulled out the axe shaped object and placed it into the table. "This is an electric shock tomahawk named the TH-2 manufactured by Colossus. After being thrown, the TH-2 is designed to imbed into the object it hits and detonate, resulting in a large electric shock. It's meant to disable biological targets and to fry electronic systems. During the last two shots I was firing at you, I was aiming with one hand instead of two and was using my left hand to prep and throw it directly towards Ichika's wings."

As Laura took the tomahawk off the table and inspected it, she asked, "What about your rail rifle?"

"You're trying to get information off me aren't you?" asked back Charlie suspiciously, staring Laura in the eyes. Laura met his gaze and after a while the tension that built up then dissolved.

Charlie then continued, "Oh well, the fight with Ichika didn't even reveal half of my equipment or capabilities, hopefully you'll prove a bigger challenge. My plasma rail rifle is, like you should assume, a rail rifle that fires supper heated bolts of plasma. It's equipped with a power cooler, a recoil mitigation system, an Advanced Targeting Optical System or an electronic scope in speaking terms, and has an adapted charge clip connected directly to my power pack for recharging, which basically gives it infinite ammo. It fires at Mach 5, causing the user and the target to see it as a longer streak than it actually is and is also semi-automatic, making it the best DMR ever made, and thus the standard weapon of choice for Valkyrian grenadier infantry. With a normal sized plasma magazine, the rifles can fire 8 shots before needing to reload. Since I feel like expanding on that, the Valkyrian military has also developed laser carbines for mechanized crews and the tactical police. As a result, calibre unguided rounds for unguided shells are obsolete and round power is measured in energy calibres. Energy calibres represent the amount of kinetic energy discharged by the round or beam on impact rather than the actual size of it, a necessary unit when comparing the firepower of Valkyrian weapons. It converts directly into standard calibres at a 1 to 1 ratio assuming that the projectiles are fired at the same velocity. For example the particular model of the plasma rail rifle I have, the Model 12, fires 1.20 energy calibre plasma bolts, which have an 'ionization' effect that can drain energy shields. It also melts through armour as well as cause a huge knockback from the velocity the bolt achieves. To put it into perspective, if one of those balls of plasma hit Ichika while he was unarmoured, he wouldn't just get a hole in his body, his body would break into several bloody chunks that would fly into whatever's behind him at the time up to a distance of around 6 meters."

After making the last statement, the faces of the girls around the table grimaced as Charlie realized that he made an error of judgement. Nav chided him in his head for being inconsiderate to "the feelings of these sorry sacs of meat", though when he apologized the girls tried to tell him that it was fine. Checking back at Ichika, Charlie was surprised to see Ichika fast asleep. Charlotte mentioned that he had a long day and that they should all get going. Charlie volunteered to carry him back to his room, managing to carry Ichika along with his own food to Ichika's door. The student council president then appeared, convincing Charlie to let her take care of Ichika through a little 'persuation'. Nav swore at her within his head for being a… well, something that Charlie thought should stay unsaid and was an over exaggeration, though Charlie did catch Nav's point about Tatenishi. He made a note to himself to never do anything to get himself on her bad side, though to be honest, her bad side should not be as scary as what he heard about Charlotte… right?

_That night, in Charlie's dream_

A group of soldiers, features indistinct, as dark as the shadows, were running, seemingly without destination, but with purpose.

"We lived in a different time, a different world, and now, we are the newcomers. We are a nation born from fire, from sacrifice, Valkyria," boomed a voice.

A black plume suddenly engulfed the group. Time seems to slow down as some vanished deep within the plume and others are thrown back into their air. They dissipated… into dust.

"Our enemy was fighting a war of extermination. They aimed to remove morality from our world by bringing in forces that were without morals, like machines. So we built our own machines!"

Time sped back up to normal as ranks of armed robots, a legion of them, marched through the dust in perfect formation and synchronization, an endless advancing column impossible to stop. They level their weapons forward... and fired.

"Even so, we were nearly annihilated, made extinct, but we survived."  
The image followed a black round, making a grey line through the landscape towards its destination. It hit a being, 4 yellow eyes were glowing out of it in the grey image they were in, out of place. The colour fades into black, the body falling onto the hard, rocky pavement, but for a moment, the being looked more human than the machines marching forward. Grey rain began to fall. The drops seemed to liquidate the ground, causing the body to sink back into the void of darkness. The shadows of Legionnaires continue marching on, unaffected by the rain.

"So now!" the voice boomed, "Fellow people of Valkyria, I grant the wish those before us had… to you. Victory… victory! We are victorious!"

An alarm clock rang out, causing Charlie to wake up from this unusual vision as the dark early morning light of 5:45 A.M. shown through his bedroom blinds.


	3. Chapter 3 - A Trial of Error

**Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries Chapter Three – A Trial of Error**

_IS Academy cafeteria during early breakfast_

Charlie was siting down at the table, having come back from finishing his Japanese set, intending to review a book he now held in his left hand, "The Manual for Valkyrian Close Quarters Combat". In his right hand he was flipping his personal combat knife, casually catching it on the grip every time without error. He heard footsteps behind him and turning while continuing to flip the knife he saw Laura coming in. He quickly checked the time and noticed that it was 6:30.

"Ah, an early riser like myself eh? One can never get rid of military habits," commented Charlie to Laura.

"Did you take advantage of the cool morning air to take a run outside before winter arrives?" asked Laura as she walked past him to get a tray of bread, corn soup, and chicken.

"Oh no, I forgot that the weather's still nice. Where I come from, there was so much nuclear fallout that it was either freezing winter or a blistering unnatural summer outside. I took a few quick laps along the hallway while waiting for my meal to be ready earlier, which I finished."

Laura sat down at the table beside Charlie. "You already finished? What did you have? And you HAVE to tell me about the nuclear fallout now that you've mentioned it."

"To answer your first true question. The Japanese set."

"That's the second Japanese meal in a role you've ate, and you're not even Japanese. Are you a fan of the local food?"

"Well, yes and no. The teriyaki salmon the kitchen cooks is a million times better than the grilled fish. But five out of years of living on Continental style breakfast military rations is enough to make you sick off it, and chicken soup was the only soup they had for 29 days every month."

"Tell me about where your state came from."

"Hmm, your German government must be desperate for information. Fine then, my uncle was going to release this information two days from now anyway. I won't try to make your job harder. Just tell your government to act surprised when he tells the story." Charlie put down the book and secured his combat knife onto his shoulder holder. Laura listened eagerly; maybe even possibly making sure a recorder was turned on.

"It all began some seven years ago. In another world similar to this one, another dimension in which everything was nearly identical. Humanity's future was looking great; the age-old reliance on fossil fuels was slowly being erased. Then, the enemy came. Murlocs they were named, but in the beginning days they were called daemons, and some believed that they were heralding the beginning of Armageddon. Their colour varied from grey to red, some had carapace armour formed over their tough skin, and some were bigger than others. But all of them had four glowing yellow eyes. Those buggers were tough and relentless. In two weeks they had wiped out an eighth of the world's population. The United Nations banded together to try to repel them, but at the time, their AA and artillery coverage was more advanced than us. Their troops didn't break and were numerous; they all had a hive mentality. Then, the founder of the Valkyria invented the nanocore, an energy source that led to the development of rechargeable energy shields that could cover entire cities. When combined with the hardened shield technology, they formed an impenetrable shield that would protect millions of people. There was only one problem however, a nanocore could only power one shield at a time, and there was only one of them built. The UN then built the tower that still stands today, designed to hold and protect the nanocore. However overtime, the individual factions that made up the UN Security Council began to argue over the course of action that was to be taken next. Eventually, lines were drawn and a military coup took place. The same one I talked about earlier. The resulting civil war destroyed a quarter of the city, but it restored order, a single unified state with a single Lord Minister, the man who had invented the nanocore. The remaining resemblance of the Security Council was demoted to function similar to the cabinets of this world's pseudo democracies. Valkyria was founded, all within two years of the outbreak of the war and after one nuclear winter of civil war. The people were desperate to follow under him, and the man was brilliant. The new constitution he drafted placed the survival of humanity, of Valkyria, above all else. All of the military powers were required to set aside their differences for the sake of the country, and all who couldn't do that were deemed unsuitable for command, moved into civilian jobs. Of course, there is still some friction between the three branches of the Valkyrian military, the army, the navy, and the Lord Minister's personal retinue. The system wasn't perfect, still isn't, but humanity jumped by leaps and bounds. Then after five more years of war, a one time use dimensional transporter was designed and built, which was how we arrived here. Of course, there was an ugly side to it; the journey taken was not without hardships and mishaps. We Valkyrians are all guilty of a great misdeed, but that was what was needed in order for anyone to survive. Like those nukes…" Charlie trailed off and stopped the story there. Laura couldn't tell his facial expressions that were hidden by his metal gas mask.

"Well, I'm going to finish going over this book now if you don't mind."

"That…" Laura wasn't sure what to say, "… is a very interesting tale, but it's difficult to believe in. You claim to come from a different dimension?"

"Actually, I'm not exactly sure of the true terminology they used to describe the movement between our old world and here. I'm not even sure if this is truly a different dimension compared to our old one. You're just going to have to wait until my uncle explains it. I'm sure he's stockpiled on factual proofs and documents to show."

Laura paused in thought, then asked another question, "What part of this, "The Manual of for Valkyrian Close Quarters Combat", are you reading?"

"Oh, I'm reading the section detailing on how to deal with soldiers trained to increase distance in order to always be able to use their firearm when you try to attack them in melee. The increasing distance in close quarters style of fighting is kind of like what the US Army Rangers were… excuse me I forgot that they still exist here, ahem, ARE trained in."

The cafeteria then began to fill up. Interrupting their conversation for the rest of the morning."

_Secondary IS Academy arena_

The entire class had gathered in one of the numerous IS sparing arenas. 6 holes had been dug on the edges of the arena, filled up by trapezoid shaped objects, wider side facing the center of the arena, on top of rotatable turrets that were plugged into power generators beside them. Everyone had strapped antennae like bits to their ISs as Charlie explained what they were for using the announcement system from the observation room.

"So, the 'bits' you have attached to your ISs are modified versions of Holographic Training Modules. They work with the Holographic Training Interface System to simulate working in a real environment. They are also used for calculating your 'virtual damage' and points during the session, since the academy's monitoring system doesn't work since your IS shields won't receive any actual damage during this, or at least shouldn't unless you crash into each other. On your HUD's you should notice a prompt to turn it on, but don't do that yet. I will tell you when to turn it on." Charlie then pressed on the touchscreen of a tablet he was carrying.

With a whir, the projectors projected a holographic image of a grey field with non-texturized buildings filled with target signs, which flickered for a moment before disappearing. The class oohed with awe as this display of advanced technology never seen before was shown to them.

"Okay, I want everyone to go through the course as fast as possible while shooting all the targets. You will be arranged into groups of six based on your score," came Charlie's voice over the speakers.

_30 minutes later_

A while later, Ichika and the usual company ended up in the same group. They were participating first while the rest of the class stayed outside of the arena to keep the trial a secret. The other groups were to book times in order to start their campaigns. Charlie spoke to them.

"Well, congratulations are in order for you all ending up in the top five. Hopefully you have gotten used to the simulated virtual projectiles you put into your targets. But now for the real thing, over the course of the Combined Arms Tactics, after demonstration lectures and theory on working with other armed forces, you will be involved in a series of missions forming a military campaign. Your objective during this is to get the best possible outcome at the end of your campaign and not have it end prematurely in failure. Since you are the highest tiered group, I have scaled your campaign to start off with an enemy advantage with campaign victory chance set to 45%. Let's now begin."

Ichika noticed that the holographic field changed from its texture less grey outline into a full colour depiction of the world with them in space complete with stars and cloud movements. The virtual Earth rotated around to zoom in onto towards a peninsula, borders highlighting two countries, coloring the north one red, and the south one blue. A military voice spoke through their headsets in Japanese.

"This is Commander Chang of South Bradwood, congratulations on passing the tests. Welcome to the IS Overwatch."

An insignia of a crosshair with the bottom half covered by clouds appeared on their HUDs. The voice continued.

"Sorry for the short notice, but our window is closing fast. At 0625 hours, North Bradwood forces crossed the DMZ along the 42nd parallel. Heavy artillery has destroyed our capital and our forces directly along the 42nd parallel have been overrun and withdrawn towards the 41st parallel. Our top priority is to evacuate civilians and to the 39th parallel. Evacuation is going smoothly, but we need to buy them more time. Your mission critical to this operation is to destroy the artillery that moved up after the capital fell. Our boots on the ground have taken heavy casualties, and in order to be able to hold the line for at least 2 hours they MUST be taken out. Lieutenant Sarah Wong will be your handler and our call sign is Overlord. Chang out."

A women's voice came through the speakers. "Hello, this is Lieutenant Wong speaking. I've marked your objectives on your HUD, which will automatically update with requests from nearby ground troops. Bringing you guys in now."

The overview of the world zoomed in to a fully coloured and texturized brown field, with extremely realistic visuals compared to the training that Ichika was surprised. A shout brought him out of the brief daze.

"What on Earth are you soldiers doing?" yelled a soldier dressed in brown field camouflage with the rank of Captain, "ISs lead the way!"

Ichika saw the others fly past him above about 3 stories above the battlefield and hurried to follow them. They moved past ground troops consisting of a tank and some soldiers rushing across the field. A marker on his HUD marked their objective in the far distance.

"North Bradwood soldiers are in front of you, about 50 spotted," came Wong's voice.

Heavy gunfire assaulted the group. Rockets and lasers were fired back in response, causing about 18 enemy troops to disappear under a mass of explosions. The remaining troops started retreating. The Captain's voice broke through the sound of gunfire.

"They're retreating! You people don't worry about them. We can handle this. Just move on to your main objective!"

Ichika found the scenery around them suddenly rush right past them and stop when the mouth of a deep valley bordered by mountains was directly in front of them. The mountains were covered in trees except for a clearing on the mountain on the right. Words in Japanese had been carved into them reading, "DL Forever". The marker told them that their objective was just on the other side of the valley.

The training simulation's Commander Chang spoke through the intercom, "This is Overlord. Satellite imagery has confirmed a very large enemy force emerging out of the valley, estimated to be a combined arms force at least 2000 men. You will not be able to handle all of them on your own, so I have diverted a squadron of SC-130 carpet bombers towards your position. However, in order for them to initiate their bombing run you MUST take out several mobile SAMs. Having the Lieutenant patch you in to them now."

"This is SC-130 unit Roaring Thunder, please clear the enemy skies and laser designate your targets, we are 10 minutes out," reported the main squadron captain.

Wong's voice came in, "Marking your new targets."

About 20 targets became highlighted, all heavy AA vehicles armed with SAMs. Byakushiki then alerted him to multiple missiles coming towards the group. At least 10 were coming for him alone. Oh no.

Meanwhile, while Ichika was having his own problems trying to deal with his own group of missiles, Laura was quickly dispatching 6 of her 10 with her wire-guided daggers. A few carefully placed shots from her .80 caliber railgun took out another 3 before blocking the last one with her AIC. She checked around and found that the rest of the girls had more or less dealt with their end. However, Ichika was flying around, desperately trying to arrange the SAMs targeting him into a ball so he could turn around and hit them all at once with Yukihara. So far, the odds weren't in his favour. Laura ended up shooting them down for him by herself. Multiple blasts of destruction told her that the others had destroyed a fifth of the targets. Even with all the gunfire, they were able to dispatch the other mobile SAMs. Cecilia handled the laser designation as they waited for the arrival of the SC-130s for 4 minutes. Suddenly Wong's voice blared through the coms.

"Shoot, Overwatch, you have 8 bogeys moving in on the SC-130s hard and fast. Take them out before they can fire on them!"

8 jet fighters rushed out towards the SC-130s approaching the valley. The group moved to intercept. A fury of air to air missiles flew towards the bombers, which started releasing countermeasures. Luckily, the missiles targeted the countermeasures, so they could focus on the bogeys.

"This is Rolling Thunder, we're taking enemy fire," reported the captain.

Laura became engaged with one of the fighters, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed three fighter jets breach their defensive parameter. She noticed Ichika moving in between to intercept them. A fighter opened fire on him with its cannons, trying to get him to move away. Ichika dodged above the fighter and used his beam sabre to slice the fighter apart from above, blowing it up. However, the remaining two fighters flew straight into two of the four SC-130s, causing an explosion as pieces of wings on fire spiralled towards the ground below.

"God dammit! Roaring Thunder units 2-2 and 2-3 are destroyed. I repeat, 2-2 and 2-3 are KIA!" yelled out the squadron captain.

"This is Overlord, continue your mission and finish it. Then get your men back home immediately."

"Roger that, dropping payload and heading home. Aiming for total coverage."

The remaining two SC-130s lined up in formation and dropped a column of carpet bombs, which fell onto the enemy units for devastating effect.

"Overlord, Rolling Thunder is now Evac Bingo. Returning home."

"Copy that," replied Commander Chang. After switching to a private channel to the group he reprimanded them, "Overwatch, your failure to fully protect all of Rolling Thunder's units have caused severe repercussions. Command now estimates that a full 75% of enemy units down below will continue on to the 41st parallel unimpeded. Your window of time has now closed down to 15 minutes. Finish the mission. You copy?"

"Yes Sir," answered the group.

The rest of the virtual training simulation went on without fault, all of the artillery was destroyed, however, the 41st parallel had fallen one hour before the requested time, reducing the chance of campaign victory from 45% to 41%.

Charlie came down into the arena as the holograms faded.

"Was that even possible to get perfect on?" asked Laura to Charlie.

"Anything is possible, but in this case it's improbable to get perfect. War is mainly about probability. All the training, the number of troops, and the planning goes towards raising the chance of victory. There is no guarantee for anything. However, raising the probability is all that matters in preparation. It's better to turn the tides in your favour than let yourself be dictated by them. In this scenario, the enemy struck first, which meant that they knew that they are most likely to win, at least the initial fight assuming they followed the first rule of war, 'never start a war you can't win'. In terms of how well you did, it was ok. It's actually possible to have the chance of campaign victory drop down to 30% within that mission, so right now I have you marked down an 80.5%, which is calculated by the following." Charlie handed out a sheet of paper to each person in the group. "As you can see, your marks in this course is calculated by 40% in the group campaign and 60% from individual tests on lessons. Your current mark of 80.5% is calculated assuming you finish the campaign, which itself is worth 50% of your group campaign mark added to your chance of campaign victory divided by 2. Then 10% is added for the difficulty level. Remember that your total mark will depend on your individual tests, so don't just hope a good outcome in this group project can carry you to pass the course. Group dismissed."

Ichika and the others immediately hurried down towards lunch, putting away the HTM bits onto the table at the entrance of the arena. Charlie quickly locked the main entrance of the arena and went back up to the observation room, ensuring that the arena systems were turned off before facing his black haired teacher behind him.

"What did you think of the course sensei?"

Chifuyu pulled out the course package he had prepared for the school board, "I think you're doing well so far, but are you sure you will be able to finish every group's campaign before the course is over?"

"There are 5 missions lasting to about an hour for each group. I've offered up every early morning including Sunday for them to finish their campaigns. So unless a group consistently fails to book one of those mornings, everyone should be fine."

"Good, as long as you can finish them before the course ends. You can go to lunch now."

Charlie hurried off to lunch.

_Meanwhile, outside the cafeteria in a nearby stairwell_

Laura was talking on her cellphone, reporting to her superiors about the new arrival quietly in German in order to make sure that no one could understand her secret discussion. The demand for information had skyrocketed ever since the 'Valkyrian Arrival Day', the new term for the appearance of the monolithic tower in the sea of Japan. A clearance of sea and airspace had being awarded to the Valkyrian government by the UN and Valkyria had been accepted into the United Nations. Valkyria had declared that the sea and airspace was restricted to Valkyrian vehicles only, diverting sea and air traffic around the tower. Valkyria had already started selling energy to several countries in exchange for food and rare mineral supplies, apparently intended for jump-starting the impoverished consumer economy strained by years of constant war. Negotiations for manufactured goods were underway, though the price of transportation taxes were getting in the way since the Valkyrians wanted the governments of the world to ship all products to Japan before picking them up with designated Valkyrian transports. As a result of this, manufactured goods being a luxury product, many foreign companies complained that Japan would get an unfair market advantage in the new prospecting economy since taxes would raise the price of imported goods going through Japan meant for Valkyria. The United States, the world's largest energy consumer, had already proposed that the country be invited to become a permanent UN Security Council member after a set number of years. However of course, this faced heavy opposition from other countries like Japan and most prominently Germany, pointing out that the exact social, military, and economic strength was still undeterminable by worldwide statistical organizations, though the US promised that the data would be available before the end of December. Germany, having established itself as the European Union's premier economic power felt like it was being overlooked. They were pushing very hard for the UN to reject that proposal.

Aside from the political turmoil occurring throughout the world, Laura found herself being given new directives to find out more and more information about Valkyria's military capability, starting with an investigation into Charlie's skill as a Sturmtruppen. Laura pointed out that since the world had never seen Valkyria's military in action, the results from observing Charlie, a single person, would most likely cause either a under or overestimation of the capability of Sturmtruppen. The Valkyrian Internet network hadn't been connected to the World Wide Web, however Valkyria's advanced communication and observation satellite could easily intercept broadcasting signals, meaning that Valkyria knew a lot more about the world than the world about Valkyria. Her superior's accepted this and ordered her to continue gathering intelligence, saying that the German government would allow for margins of error. The call was terminated, and as Laura walked out of the stairwell back towards the cafeteria she bumped into Charlie carrying his food at the entrance to the stairwell.

"Oh, sorry Sharp-kun," apologized Laura.

Charlie replied with a odd statement in fluent German instead of Japanese, "You know, after comparing the value of the Valkyria dollar to the US dollar, the Valkyria defense budget trounces the US defense budget by almost four times. Which means that Valkyria could probably handle a total war against all members of the Security Council at the same time."

"Excuse me?"

Charlie walked past her without answering her surprised question. He left Laura thinking about his last statement when realization hit Laura on the head.

Laura exclaimed in her thoughts, "What! He was listening to my conversation the entire time from outside the stairwell!"


	4. Valkyrian Files: The Tower

_Hi everyone, I'm still trying to improve on Chapter 4 right now, so the project's not dead. Here's a fact file FYI about Valkyria. Thank you for your patience! P.S. Is anyone excited for P5, P4:TUUSH, PQ:SotL, or the lesser hyped Persona 4: Dancing All Night? Well, let me know in your comments._

**Valkyrian Files: The Tower**

From the outside, the monolithic sized 'tower' seems to be what the Tower of Babel could have been. Metallic red with several 4 base legs, it seems to touch the heavens, a feat unthinkable for humanity for within the century. However, this structure wasn't built for looks or as a cultural demonstration, it's built as only one thing... a fortress.

After the discovery of the nano core by Dr. Fukushima (later Lord Prime Minister) which provided nearly limitless power and nanotechnology as a byproduct, he proposed the building of a tower housing the world's largest energy shield generator, able to withstand untold damage. He named it, the Metropolis Defense Structure. It was to include an artificial island, named New Hope, and was to be built predominantly with carbon nanotubes.

At this point, the world was 1 year into the war, with ground lost everyday. The UN quickly approved it under project name Eden. Thanks to nanoproduction, the MDS was finished within two years.

The MDS itself currently has 6 platform levels on the upper half of the structure with wait capacity for 9. The platforms are not protected by the shield and rely on their height and the lack of enemy fliers for protection. They are arranged as followed from top to bottom:

Platform 1 holds the aerial control tower.

Platform 2 holds the aircraft launch and landing pads.

Platform 3 holds the satellite launch station.

Platforms 4 and 5 hold a total of 12 super rail cannons, which fire 800 mm guided shells.

Platform 6 holds a military complex that is overshadowed by it's larger 4 and 5 platforms.

The only way to get onto the tower is by aircraft or one of the two sky lifts. The MDS would remain standing for the duration of the war to this day. As time progressed, AGM sites were built to destroy troop carrying rocket pods that became prevalent from year 5 of the war onwards. Heavy metal shields were installed around the edges of the platforms to protect personnel from high altitude shells and falling debris that became prevalent from year 4 of the war onwards. By mid-year 4 of the war, all personnel operating on the exposed-to-air edge of the platforms had to be required to use carabiners to prevent being knocked off the tower.

Nations outside of Valkyria today can only speculate on the MDS armament from satellite images.


	5. Chapter 4 - Hauntings from the Past

**Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries Chapter Four – Hauntings from the Past**

_IS Academy arena_

Charlie found himself back in the IS duelling arena, this time facing off against Laura and Ichika with Charlotte in a two versus two match. A large amount of business people had came to observe the matchup ever since news of Charlie's victory against Ichika had spread throughout the city. Bill had messaged him his congratulations over the secured communication line that was set up in his room. In fact, there were even rumours that Tabane Shinonono, Houki's older sister and the famous inventor of the IS had came to observe the battle. Charlie glanced over at the observation deck with his thermal/IR vision view and noticed that there was an additional person in there, mostly likely the creator. Looking back towards Charlotte, he got a nod, which meant she understood the aspects of their battleplan. He stared ahead at his two opponents and readied his mind for the fight, Nav checking through all battle systems in the background an additional time in a millisecond. An announcement signalled the start of the brawl.

Charlie blasted off into the sky and fired at Laura with his Model 12 while Charlotte used her Revive to engage Ichika at range. Although the two opponents fought best with single targets, Charlie had a plan in mind. As expected, Laura easily stopped the otherwise devastating plasma bolt with her AIC. She took aim with her own rail gun and fired. Her reaction speed would, for a normal person, seem like a blur due to her Hypersensor. Unbeknownst to her, Charlie had his own Hypersensor system, getting out of the direction of the gun barrel before Laura even pulled the trigger. Charlie then activated another weapon system, a Type 17 Actively Guided Grenade Launcher mounted on his jetpack. The launcher fired mini-missile grenade projectiles that actively tracked and flew towards its designated target at a rate of 4 shots per second with an 8 shot magazine. The depleted magazine was then refilled within 0.5 seconds before the barrage continued. Laura focused on using her AIC to block the rounds and turned to the side a bit, seemingly exposing a weak spot. Charlie knew better to fall for the faint though, and suddenly dropped downwards as six wire-guided daggers flew past his head. As the daggers turned around back towards its target, a sudden blast of information caused them to change trajectory and fly over Charlie's shoulders before turning and facing Laura.

"Thanks for the expendable equipment."

Laura could only block four of the incoming daggers before the other two hit her shield from the front at the same time. Her shield energy level dropped down to 80%.

"You hacked them?" asked Laura

"Yes, the function of the Electronic Hacking and Control System, just one of many that weren't used in my fight with Ichika. I'm done gauging your reaction timing. It's evident that the size of your Schwazer Regen is just way too large to be able to manoeuvre at the same flexibility as me. Now, THIS is when the real fight begins."

And with that statement, Charlie disappeared into thin air.

Meanwhile, Charlotte was dodging Ichika's swings frantically as she attempted to kite him around the arena. Ichika, not getting the chance to even use Yukihara Type Two in the previous match, was certain to use it against her or Charlie later on in the fight. Ichika was making sure that Charlotte couldn't use her Revive's range advantage. Charlotte could see the determination in his eyes as she realized that she would lose if Charlie couldn't alleviate her from the current predicament. Charlotte then realized that she had let herself be backed up into the wall of the arena, with only limited space to move. Ichika was approaching from an upward angle that made it impossible for Charlotte to dodge upwards or downwards. She was screwed.

Then Laura cried out to Ichika, "Ichika! Be careful! I've lost Charlie."

That's when out of nowhere a plasma bolt slammed into Ichika from the side, causing his shields dropping to 65%. Ichika recovered and quickly backed off from Charlotte, regrouping with Laura while they both tried to identify where the shot came from. Charlotte quickly scanned through Revive's multiple sensors and realized that she couldn't detect Charlie at all. In fact, the data stream that informed the IS pilots and the observers of Charlie's shield energy value was flickering on and off erratically. "What on Earth is going on?" she thought to herself. Revive then received a single message from Charlie transmitted during one of the erratic data streams. It read, "Flash out."

Charlotte quickly looked away from Ichika and Laura's direction and closed her eyes as a bright blinding light flashed 9 times from a seemingly magical appearing flash bang. While Ichika was completely blinded, Laura was only partially blinded thanks to her rapidly adjusting Hypersensor, which allowed her to catch a glimpse of vision before each flash. However, the distraction caused her to not notice a powerful laser beam moving towards the back of her head from an appearing Charlie.

In the events before this, right after Charlie 'disappeared'. He had made sure that his Active Wave Cancelling System was working properly. Nano antennas along his armour projected electromagnetic fields that affectively cancel out many different types of incoming electromagnetic waves, essentially causing him to become to become invisible to detectors and the human eye. However, he had to drop to the floor of the arena in order to eliminate the sound coming from his jetpack. His combat boots being resistant to producing sound. He took aim and fired at Ichika from the side, before running across the ground. Nav quickly sent a message to Charlotte along with one of the data stream waves that were required to display his shield energy level on the duelling monitor system. He took a position at the opposite side of Ichika and Laura from Charlotte.

"Prepare for flash," ordered Charlie within his thoughts as he stowed his Model 12 into its weapon slot.

"Prepared," responded Nav.

Charlie then removed from his equipment belt and dropped a live flash bang. As the 9 banger flashed, he activated Orgia Mode, his 'one-off' ability in IS terms. Orgia Mode, at the cost of disabling the AWCS, removed his nanocore's limiters, greatly increasing speed, agility, hypersensor reflex rate, and the quantum processor processing rate of the AI, and others, which included the most important thing, he needed now. He had to due this quickly as the IS anti-glare systems will mitigate the flash, causing it to only be an annoying distraction. Charlie pulled out his laser pistol out of its poster as he burst upwards in his jetpack at terrifying speeds and pointed the barrel at the back of Laura's head.

"Execute," he said as he pulled the trigger.

A single 3.63 energy calibre laser beam struck Laura as the entire charge of the laser pistol's clip was unloaded in one overcharged shot. Laura immediately crashed into the arena ground as her 80% of shield energy completely dissipated in an instant. Ichika had barely anytime to react as Charlie holstered the pistol and unsheathed a one to double-handed power sabre. The power sabre was swung with such force that Ichika was thrown back as he blocked it with the longer Yukihara. Noticing the immense bright blue energy radiating from the Nano strengthened metallic blade, Ichika activated Yukihara Type Two and put all his power behind an overhead strike. The powers of the two swords were so even and immense that both of them were thrown back. They duelled, Ichika's power behind his strikes matched by Charlie's extremely quick visually blurring attacks. The two seemed to be in a stalemate when several rounds of well-placed bullets hit Ichika in the back and drained his shield energy levels to zero ending the match. Charlotte had reacted to the change in situation and had her two IS PDWs aimed at Ichika. Charlie, in the middle of a swing, immediately put a heavy burst of thrust in the lower section of the jetpack and slid in midair causing his melee arm to fall backwards and away from Ichika, kicking and sending Ichika crashing down into the arena in the process but saving his life. Charlie himself crashed into the walls of the arena right after, causing the blue glow of an energy shield to be seen as it absorbed his impact. Charlotte noticed an odd hexagonal pattern become highlighted during the visual appearance of Charlie's shields.

He got up, his helmet scratched a bit. "That bait and hook worked well Charlotte, just like old times."

"Old times?" asked Charlotte.

"Hmm? Oh… I meant just as we planned. I don't know how those words came out. Haha," said Charlie as he awkwardly attempted to laugh that comment off. Charlotte thought she noticed that something off was about him when he replied to her question.

Yamada-sensei's voice interrupted her thought. "The winners are Charlie Sharp and Charlotte Dunois!"

A huge cheer erupted from the crowd. The foreigner had just won another IS duel. A bunch of the suits got up from their seats and walked away, hands reaching for their smartphones. Charlie was quickly becoming an international celebrity.

"Ouch! Sharp-kun, you really are too fast to fight… and invisible," came Laura's voice. She had recovered from her impact and was up along with Ichika.

"The circumstances at that point were still in favour for me. Nano antennas on my suit create an electromagnetic field that cancels out electromagnetic waves. At that point, all your passive and active detection systems related to sight became useless. I'm sure you will be able to come up with some strategy to take me down now that you know," stated Charlie.

"Heh, you were still able to match me blade for blade even after I activated my one off ability Charlie-kun," commented Ichika.

"Well, that's when my own one off… and partners come in handy. Right Dunois-san?"

"Eeh? Well, I guess so," replied Charlotte, embarrassed by the sudden compliment.

"You did great," stated Charlie. Spotting Cecilia, Houki, and Lingyin coming down from the stands, he said," Oh my, look at the time. I better get going to make my afternoon report, see you guys later." Charlie took off.

"Hmm? Has he always had to leave right away during the afternoon?" asked Charlotte.

"Come to think of it, I never saw him in the hallways in between this and last period," answered Laura.

_Charlie's Room_

Charlie stood in front of the camera, staring at the screen in front of him. With a beep, the monitor turned on, revealing Bill sitting in a leather sofa. "Sir," greeted Charlie while snapping of a salute his uncle. His uncle saluted back.

"At ease."

Charlie dropped his arm, unstiffening his posture.

"Safety check."

"Encryption's on and no bugs listening in."

"Begin the report."

"I engaged in combat with Dunois against Ichika and Laura; defeating them. Bodewig's investigation has been slowed down, however it was due to me revealing my recon abilities. The tactical information I gathered on the IS have been transmitted to command by Nav," stated Charlie.

"Very well, though it's a shame that you've had to reveal another one of your hands so early in the game."

"The loss is well worth it though in my opinion."

"Why?"

"I've found out more information on how the world works here. Also, I'm going to meet Tabane Shinonono, the inventor of the IS after finishing this report."

"That meeting could determine our relationships with this world, please do well. Enlighten me with what you've learned."

"The invention of the IS has resulted in a vast social change as the roles of men and women were reversed. At the same time, all nations on this planet kept ISs for themselves as a demonstration of power, so the IS is valued as a national asset. Naturally, Japan found itself with the advantage of training students at the only IS Academy in the world; yet at the same time, they've had to compromise with personal IS users. You see where I'm going?"

"Ah, so if controlling an IS core determines how powerful a state is, then we should make a keen effort to take and reengineer one of them."

Charlie nodded. "As long as we don't have an IS, all of the states will see us not as equals, but one to be taken advantage of. Their goal is to steal our technology and catch up to us as fast as possible, and they are all naïve enough to think that they would destroy us should war arise."

"And therefore, we have to make the first steal. Ok Charlie, I'll send this preposition to command. I'll be back at the usual time tonight for our meeting to give you new orders."

"Anything new on your end uncle?"

"The Caelestic Bellator orbital kinetic strike satellite has been finished. It will launch tomorrow in disguise as one of the 6 month communication satellite launches after my meeting with the UN where we will announce the start of our involvement in the Somalian seas."

"It's time isn't it?"

"Yes Charlie, the beginning of a brave new world. Chrissie even came up with a political slogan, 'The End of Piracy'. The UN voted to pool a task force of ISs for surgical strikes on pirate compounds."

Charlie nodded, remembering Bill's company secretary who recently had to pull double time (with the help of a new assistant secretary) ever since he had been selected for diplomatic duties. "Since we don't have ISs of our own, I assume we'll be providing intelligence and support duties?"

"Indeed, you're fully correct… for now." An alarm signalled the end of the time limit for the meeting. "I think this ends our talk, see you tonight."

"Sir." Charlie saluted.

"Charlie." Bill returned the salute and communication was cut off.

_Later_

Charlie was walking along the corridor towards Orimura-sensei's office, where presumably he was about to meet face to face with Tabane Shinonono for the first time. As he walked past the student council room, the door suddenly opened and a hand dragged him inside.

Charlie reflexively grabbed and twisted the arm around the unknown persons back and pushed them to kneel on the ground, before realizing whom it was.

"Sarashiki-san!" exclaimed Charlie as he hastily let go of the student council president's hand. "Jesus, don't grab me like that! I could have pulled my pistol on you."

"My sincere apologies if that frightened you. On a side note, that's the first time someone has managed do that to me in a long time, I offer you my congratulations," remarked Tatenashi as she stood up, turned to face him, and pulled out her trademark fan that had the words, "The Academy's Strongest" written in Japanese on it.

Charlie sighed. "What do you want? I have a very important meeting to get to."

"Well," Tatenashi said with a mischievous look on her face, "I want you to set up a Haunted House for Halloween in October."

"That's all? That task seems remarkably simple for the likes of you."

"Well, I also want you to set up an enclosed room that Ichika-kun will get trapped in during the night within. Also make it so that only a few selected people can enter the room for the duration of his stay."

"Hmm? What for?" asked Charlie. Then he had a realization. "Actually never mind, I'd rather not know if it involves you or any other girl. I accept your request without question."

Tatenashi chuckled at his statement. "Good, I'll send you an email with specifications."

Charlie quickly paced out of the room and hurried to his destination, eager to get out of the way of the blue-haired girl.

_Chifuyu Orimura's Office_

Charlie stepped inside the office that he had only seen once before. It was a private office that seemed comfortable to work in, outfitted with a large monitor. He had only spotted Chifuyu when he was immediately smothered by questions by what appeared to be a woman with purple hair and eyes wearing a lab coat and a pair of robotic rabbit ears.

"How nice to meet you Sharp-kun! Ooh, why are you wearing a gasmask? Is it made out of metal? Can I take a look at your hat?" stated the woman energetically like a child before being hit on the head by Chifuyu with a notebook.

"Calm down Tabane-san, you're making Sharp-kun uncomfortable. Sorry for her reaction, she's always like this," apologized Chifiyu.

"You… are Tabane Shinonono? I had the impression that you would be more… formal," stammered Charlie. He really did not expect the inventor of the IS to be so childlike.

"Yes I am! I am Tabane, the one and only genius of the world!" stated Tabane proudly while smiling at him.

"Well, I guess that you being the genius of the world remains to be seen now," remarked Charlie.

"Eh? Who can you think is smarter than me? My IQ is through the ceiling," asked Tabane, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at Charlie, though she did it in such a childish way that she hardly seemed threatening.

"Well, Valkyria's Lord Constructor, for one. He invented most of Valkyria's technology."

"Hmph, I guess I have a rival now, but I'll show this "Lord Constructor" who really is the true genius if he is even comparable to me at all," responded Tabane.

Grateful he was wearing a gasmask that blocked her view of his face, Charlie rolled his eyes at that comment. He was sceptical of this person being smarter than the Lord Constructor. After all, Japan's military four-wheelers were the equivalent of fish barrels compared to Valkyrian standards. A single person with a laser carbine could tear them up a new one. The bulletproof plating did nothing to prevent laser beams from burning through the compartment of it. Heck, aside from the ISs, which were still poorer in comparison in weapon power to Valkyrian arms, everything that the locals had was out-dated. It was simply astonishing that different circumstances could cause technology gaps to widen by an extremely large increment within the same amount of time.

"Still, I am curious how your manoeuvring capabilities far surpass those of my inventions. You were moving way too fast. Just wearing an upgraded of infantry armour for lighter mass doesn't explain your sudden change in speed."

Charlie smiled faintly, "I'm afraid I can't tell you, all Valkyrian technology is classified. Besides, higher levels of technology require more energy and financial resources; a luxury you don't have."

"Chifuyu-san, I don't like this boy," said Tabane to the instructor behind her.

Chifuyu was pretending to be working behind a huge stack of papers at her desk, ignoring Tabane.

Charlie was feeling slightly irritated by the general direction of the conversation. "Tabane, exactly why do you want me to be here? This is going nowhere. If you want information on classified technology, I'm telling you now that you won't get it."

"The first question I have is about why you didn't use the simulators and instead relied on your holographic projectors? The IS simulators emulate the stress that affects an IS pilot and doesn't limit the space that the pilots can travel in, and I know that this topic isn't classified."

"Well, I did ponder about the potential of adapting the virtual reality program for it, but then I realized that the simulators, while being able to create training fields that are virtually unlimited in size, can't run with 'true' AI. The friends and foes in the simulator OS are all using scripted dialogue and behaviours. In other words, the virtual units can't innovate. Sure, they can adapt in response to the performance of the pilots, but they can't predict and plan ahead independently. This means that in training, the pilots never face opponents who deviate from the most efficient way of fighting, and therefore, never train and prepare for foes that use tactics. In the Valkyrian virtual training OS, every computer soldier, every AI, make their own independent decisions. In the Valkyrian navy, there is a joke that the reason why humans will always win against a drone when using the same ships is because the Captain always gambles and calls it tactics when retorting to his superiors. Of course, since Valkyria has developed semi-sentient AI, the saying is a bit out-dated, but it teaches us that all tacticians are gamblers. You are always betting that the odds are in your favour, that out of the thousands of variables, your plan will work. And it's because your simulator doesn't allow for this that I've chosen to stick with a system that is limited to the confines of the arena. As for the holographic projectors, the ones available to this academy are just too premature for this specific usage, so I had to bring in Valkyrian ones."

"Aah, I now fully understand now," Tabane nodded to herself in satisfaction, "but I have another question for you."

"Yes?"

"Exactly how much are you supposed to find out about the IS and the governments."

"Well, only as much as other countries want to find out about us. Which of course means everything short of nuclear launch codes and ways to instigate unwanted war."

"…"

"?"

"Oh! That was a joke, but I have to tell you that it wasn't funny at all," said Tabane with a smile.

Charlie thought to himself, 'How on Earth can someone be blunt and still act so cute?'

Chifuyu took this moment to interrupt the conversation. "Ok, Charlie has to go to class now, so he has to leave."

Charlie said his farewells to Tabane and took the chance to leave the room, hurrying towards class.

_Later, Charlie's dream_

Charlie was running in the darkness. He couldn't see anything.

"Charlie!"

Charlie ran in full panic, trying to reach the voice, a sense of impending doom filling him.

"Charlie!"

Charlie in the dim of the darkness noticed a dark figure ahead of him on the ground.

"Charlie!"

Charlie reached downwards and grabbed the figure, the darkness dissipating. However… what he saw next was too terrifying to put into words.

Charlie woke up in shock, only the ticking of the bedside clock and the sound of his breathing making any sound in his bedroom.


	6. Valkyrian Files: Blitzkrieg

_Another staller chapter, I'm still working on it. Also I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people, who while DIDN'T actually say whether they thought that this fanfiction was good or bad, they did point out mistakes and asked questions. So I thank you guys._

**Valkryian Files: Blitzkrieg**

The Valkyrian version of the blitzkrieg was developed in order to fulfill the need of a solid battle doctrine for mechanized assaults over vast tracks of land during the spring counteroffensives of year 4 and 5 of the war for human survival; influencing how mechanized battles would be conducted from then onwards.

Modern blitzkrieg generally involves mechanized divisions with rapid air support. Gunships and other hover air transports were typically not used in the blitz due to Murloc entrenched AA positions being particularly affective against low altitude flying craft.

Elite panzer armor divisions with Sturmtruppen and pioneer troop complements led the assault wave. They smashed through weak parts of the enemy front and aim to push as far as they can: going around heavily defended areas. The cleanup would be done by legionnaire, grenadier, and sapper armored divisions following behind.

The number of legionnaires per square kilometer determined the distance covered by the assault. After reaching a certain threshold of legionnaires per square kilometer, the advance would stop completely and the main group would begin fortifying the front. Gunships and hover air transports would then be brought in to reinforce the front, since enemy AA attacking while advancing in the open towards the defended were much more easier to deal with then before when entrenched. Logistical divisions would also be brought in to replenish supplies used up during the assault. The elite divisions ahead of the front would switch to a scouting patrol role with the aim of providing early enemy attack warnings. In this way, the blitzing attack group would never overextend themselves like how the Germans did during WWI after the implementation of The Kaiser's Battle.


	7. Chapter 5 - The End and The Beginning

_Here it is, finally. To be honest, I'm feeling a little discouraged since about close too 80 people have apparently seen this series but only about four have actually made any reviews. (Common guys, reviews make up the author's self-worth. At least leave a comment.) Still though, I'm amazed to be getting traffic from all the way from Venzuela, so hats off to you readers. Chapter 6 and 7 are being worked on simultaneously and I predict that they will be done about next week. See you then!_

**Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries Chapter Five – The End and the Beginning…**

"Ok, class, I've heard that your teachers have told you that the most important aspects of combat are weight, speed, and flow. I'm telling you that in my class, forget all of that, by participating in my class I'm assuming that you've already made all necessary adjustments to your IS. In this class, the key word that you must remember is 'survive'. In war, combat is dictated by survival. Having the most optimal configuration for your equipment won't mean anything if you martyr yourself in the first fight you get into. Survival and the will to live are valued above all. If you can survive, you'll find that skills, knowledge, preparation, and materials will follow. Everyone, what is the most important thing?"

"Survival", replied the class obediently. Charlie was proving to be, in his own way, almost as scary as Orimura-sensei when he taught. The class was in his combined arms lesson.

"Again."

"Survival."

"Now I've taught you all the basics of battlefield medicine, so today we're moving on to strategy for combined arms. Does anyone know what these words mean?" Charlie wrote the words 'Divide et Impera' onto the dry erasable board beside the classroom monitor. A single arm rose almost immediately.

"Laura-san."

"Divide and rule, alternatively known as divide and conquer."

"That is correct. In politics it means to maintain power by causing those under you to become politically isolated and prevent them from uniting against you and is also used in math. In combat, it means dividing the enemy and cutting off their support from each other, allowing you to destroy, rout, or capture the weaker individual formations."

On the classroom monitor, it showed a collage of pictures of infantry, vehicles, and aircraft. "Divide and conquer is essential to modern battlefield tactics which now involve combined arms in mechanized warfare. Armies are faster then ever, and rarely does a situation occur that presents a non-elastic front. Of course as time goes on, commanders of the future will have to identify and control increasing variables of units as new types of weapon systems are created."

The monitor switched to an image of a mass production IS unit. "I'll have you know that despite the advent of ISs, a good commander facing an enemy equipped with them without having ISs of his own can efficiently win a battle decisively if he knows what to use and when."

An excerpt from a 2009 article appeared, titled "How David Beats Goliath (When Underdogs Break the Rules)". Unfortunately, it was written in English, so a lot of the students couldn't read it. "Basically this section describes Doug Lenat and his learning software program Eurisko. In 1981, they entered the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron tournament, in San Mateo, California. This was a naval war game, in which people studying military science came and faced off against each other in one versus one matches. The contestants were given several volumes of rules with the goal to create the ultimate fleet using one trillion theoretical dollars. Now, Doug Lenat, being a software programmer from Stanford University, has no idea how to play war games. He decided to enter the rules into Eurisko, a learning program and enter the tournament with the fleet it created without a single round of practice. He didn't give a recommendation to the computer, so when they went to the tournament, every gamer laughed at the computer generated fleet, then subsequently loss to it, every single one of them." Charlie paused.

"You see, Eurisko had determined that most war gamers would field a version of the traditional fleet of aircraft carriers, destroyers, and others with extremely high defense. The best possible fleet that it determined was using that trillion credits to by an astronomical number of small ships equipped with powerful weaponry. The ships were not equipped with any propulsion or defense systems, so when the battle occurred, the enemy fleet would fire with pinpoint accuracy, each shot destroying one ship. However, the number of small ships and weaponry overwhelmed the enemy. The program entered in the next tournament, which had a rule detailing that the fleets had to have 'mobility'. Eurisko determined that since it could sink its own ships, every time a boat was damaged it would automatically sink, thus raising the mobility of the fleet and allowing it to field the same units."

Charlie allowed the information to be noted by the students. "The lesson here is that even if your troops are more powerful then the enemy, you can be utterly defeated from unforeseen circumstances. Never underestimate the enemy, it is better to overestimate than to lose."

_Late night, Charlie's room_

"Lord Lieutenant Hans, be sure that the boat will be at the package pick up point. Failure to be available after the package is in traction is not an option tonight."

"Understood my Lord Captain, but to be sure, only the most trusted of the Sturmtruppen can be involved, correct?" replied the officer on the other end of the camera..

"Yes, only the most loyal of your troops. If word gets out that Valkyria is involved in the imminent package removal. We will have an international crisis on our hands. Valkyria cannot lose the trust of the United States at all costs."

"Yes sir."

"Okay, ending transmission." Charlie ended the encrypted video link.

He sighed. "Nav, you got everything planned?"

Nav replied, "Yes operator. All material is prepared. Snatch and steel."

Charlie picked up a white mask from the nanoprinter. He put it on.

"It looks nice on you," commented Nav sarcastically.

Charlie ignored it. He quickly changed into the synthetic dark red raincoat and grey pants. He went over to the mirror and checked himself. A triangle shaped logo formed by three red trapezoids was imprinted on the mask. Picking up the laser carbine and filling his ammo pouches with magazines, he went over to the balcony and disappeared over the edge.

_Next morning, Chifuyu's office_

An email popped onto Chifuyu's computer screen. Recognizing the sender and the header, which read, "URGENT", she checked the contents of it. It was a notification warning influential members of the Japanese IS community that a Phantom Task built captured autonomous IS unit was stolen from its storage in the warehouse district on the mainland. A security guard was stunned by a stun gun during the raid. However she was shot stealthily from behind, which meant that she didn't see who did it. Chifuyu went through her mind for possible suspects that would steal a groundbreaking Golem. Well, there's always… another cell in Japan? Ignoring that suspect, resigning herself to contact various individuals she knows about the possibility later, her thoughts trailed over to a certain observer in the academy. She was disappointed that she found numerous security measures installed in every entrance to Charlie's room, because they prevented her from getting information out of it. Despite the diplomatic agreement between the Japanese government and Valkyria, Chifuyu was never stopped by rules if it threatened the safety of the academy.

Checking over the rest of the emails, she found one that noted that during Sunday, three Valkyrian individuals would be visiting the city. It continued on that Charlie had permission to leave the academy island during that time. Chifuyu never liked leaving people like him unobserved, so she would have to find someone to do it for her.

Chifuyu walked over to the door and opened it. Looking out into the hallway, she spotted Laura walking past.

"Laura-san."

Laura turned around immediately, a bit startled from her mentor calling her out in the middle of the hallway. "Orimura-sensei."

"Could you handle a task for me?"

_Cafeteria, lunch time_

"Hey Charlie-kun, could we come with you tomorrow?" asked Laura.

"Hmm?" Charlie was busy reading a printed article on Dr. Jung's theory of personas and shadows. He saved his spot and put it into his jacket pocket.

"Could we come with you tomorrow down to the city and meet your friends?" repeated Laura.

Charlie noticed that everyone at the table was waiting for his answer.

"Sure," he replied, "I think they'll be interested to meet you guys."

"Hmm, what should I wear?" thought Cecilia out loud to herself.

"I would wear whatever Ichika-kun want's me to," said Rin as she edged closer towards Ichika.

"I think you'd all look fine in whatever you chose to wear," said Ichika neutrally as he slid down the bench away from her a bit.

"Wrong answer Ichika-kun, girls don't like passive answers. You have to provide more information on your opinion than that," said Charlie.

"Yeah common Ichika-kun, what would you really like us to wear?" asked Houki. All the girls seemed to edge closer towards him. Nav noted the immediate effect on Ichika within Charlie's mind. Ichika was obviously uncomfortable with the question.

"Well, if you insist, skirts and blouses I guess," replied Ichika.

"How long should the skirts be?" asked Laura.

"Hey! They should be at least as long as the academy uniforms, right?" replied Ichika while flustered.

"In other words girls, he means any length that doesn't seem scandalous to the public, so you can basically go all out," remarked Charlie.

"Wait! That's not what I meant!" yelled Ichika.

The entire table burst into laughter at Ichika's indignation.

_Sunday morning, mainland city harbor front_

A teenage caucasian boy with brown hair wearing a white short-sleeved shirt that was not tucked in checked his watch.

"Hey Rin, didn't Charlie say that he'd be hear by about now?" asked the boy in English. The question was directed to a Japanese origin girl dressed all in black shirt and jeans with long black hair.

"Yeah, I'm guessing he probably got held up by the obscene traffic they have here. Even the downtown core in Valkyria isn't this congested by cars and pedestrians," replied Rin.

"The civilian cars here aren't electric like at home. At most there are several hybrids," commented a girl with all white hair, pale skin, and light blue eyes, which seemed to glow and obscure the white edge surrounding the pupil. She wore a white blue collared short-sleeved shirt with a blue skirt and appeared to be half Caucasian and half of Japanese origin. Her appearance seemed angelic to the Japanese passerby, who paused in their tracks at the sight of her.

"Also, the civilians here have never seen a 'saint' like you before Yuki," commented the boy.

"Well Michael, I do notice that. Thanks for mentioning it to me anyway," replied Yuki sarcastically.

"Hey!" came a cry.

Michael turned his head and saw Charlie waving towards them as he jogged to them.

"Charlie!"

"Michael!" They hugged each other. Afterwards Charlie hugged each of his two other friends. "Haven't seen you guys since the end. You all doing well?"

"Yep, Michael's now part of the Colossus Research and Development section while Yuki's entered medical school."

"Congratulations, how about you Rin?"

"I'm now teaching piano lessons as a tutor at Crescent Moon High since our unit got disbanded."

"Must be nice having a quieter life. Well, I hope you guys know your Japanese well," said Charlie. He introduced them to the group following up from behind in Japanese.

"Thanks for allowing us to meet your friends Charlie-kun," thanked Laura.

"No problem, it's a pleasure," replied Charlie. "Well," he said, turning to everyone, "it's almost lunch time, so do you guys want to go eat at a café I've being recommended to?"

"Sure Charlie-kun," replied Rin, emphasizing the honorific, "your academy friends have been living here so they should know the best spots in town."

"Guys, could you lead the way?" asked Charlie.

The group started off. The girls were chatting with Rin and Yuki while Ichika hurriedly followed. Charlie and Michael dropped back behind on purpose.

Charlie switched into English. "Is the project in R & D going well so far?"

"Yep, all of the machine's security counter measures have been successfully dealt with. The reverse engineers in the labs are having a field day with the new toy they can play with."

Charlie chuckled.

"Hey you two, are you going to get left behind or what?" came Laura's voice in Japanese from ahead.

"Not a chance!" yelled Michael.

They ran to join up with the others.

_Meanwhile, secret location in an underground warehouse in Valkyria_

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Ministry of Arms," stated Bill confidently, standing in front of an object underneath a black tarp with a holographic projector at his side. "I am proud to present the fruition of the efforts of the joint project between Ergo Research and Colossus R & D in this meeting to decide the development of future weapon systems. The potential of the full usage of this technology is very great, and I believe it will strengthen our cause and position in this brave new world. Behind me stands the base of our research that we will model our weapon system on and I will be presenting you our information on it and what we can do to improve on the design and make it our own." He paused. "And so, may I present to you, the future!"

An aid removed the tarp with a flourish, revealing a military grade mass production IS that was recently captured after the downfall of the one known Phantom Task's Japanese cell:

IS model, Golem - Unit 13.

_Check out the New Yorker article here (Note: The link has to start with "www period newyorker period com". For some reason the site automatically deletes the opening line when I try to type it up normally.):_

_/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all_


	8. Chapter 6 - Of a Brave New World

_I finally found time to finish this chapter. Christmas Breaks coming up soon, so I'll probably update this more often for a few weeks. Os a note: This includes video sequences, but unfortunately I'm not that good at those, so if you guys can provide any tips on that I'll be thankful._

**Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries Chapter 6 – …of a Brave New World**

_Early morning, off the coast of Somalia_

"U-destroyer VKM Midguard surfacing. All hands to your stations."

A huge submarine with a wide flat deck that sloped down at the sides emerged from the water. Its shape revealed that it was a submersible destroyer, easily matching the size of the largest US next generation destroyers. As the mist caused by the splash of it surfacing faded, turrets could be seen rising out of slots on lower decks sticking out at the sides of the ship. The ship was armed with rail howitzers that could fire plasma rounds and active guided shells. The active guided shells could split into shrapnel in mid-air to deal damage to soft targets over a high area with the high explosive warhead in the center landing in the center of the target intact.

In a command station, the UN commanding officer of the task force watched the tactical data stream come through onto the holoscreen.

"Sir, the VKM Midguard has arrived and is in position. That marks the last of the participating ships," reported an aid.

"Never in my entire career fighting against piracy have I thought that any nation would dare intervene on the Somalian mainland. This marks the first time in history that anyone goes to strike the pirates on the land rather than in the water and it's the United Nations that does it," commented the commander to the aid.

"Indeed sir… All participating IS units are ready to go. Standing by for your orders."

The commander grinned a bit as he gave his order, "Commence Operation Wake-Up Call."

_Meanwhile, lunch time in the IS Academy cafeteria_

Charlie was studying the map of the battlefield on his tablet, waiting for the first students to arrive from class. He pondered over his current situation. His infantry squads were holding the town and had fortified it with plenty of defences. However, the incoming enemy force was very large and would be approaching the town from two sides in a bid to overwhelm his forces by numbers.

"Good afternoon Charlie-kun."

Charlie looked up and saw Laura accompanied by Charlotte coming with their lunches.

"Oh, good afternoon."

"What are you doing?" asked Charlotte.

"I'm preplanning for a game mission that Michael-kun gave me yesterday. The missions very hard though."

"What type of game is it?"

"It's a diesel punk themed RTS that simulates giving general orders like in real life rather than having unrealistic direct control of individual units. The main game is played on the computer, but you can make preliminary plans on the tablet companion app. It's called "New Order" and takes place in an alternate universe where genetically altered animals and diesel punk war machines exist. Hitler's assassinated in a military coup that causes the Third Reich to be overthrown and a new German Federation to take over. They make peace with the Allies and return all conquered land while keeping Austria territory, but the USSR still pushes relentlessly westwards due to the terror weapons that the Nazi's unleashed on the communists. The former Nazi order has been destroyed after the reveal of the Holocaust, and the new order fights a one sided war against the Soviets. President Roosevelt dies before Pacific war ends and without him maintaining peace; Prime Minister Churchill convinces the Allies to take the remaining German forces and attack the Soviets. Operational Unthinkable occurs, and in a bid to gain natural resources, Russia intervenes in the Chinese civil war and establish a communist government quickly before invading Allied territory in Asia."

"That sounds really complicated," commented Charlotte.

Charlie laughed. "The back story is always complicated. The game's still hard though."

"Can I see your plans?" asked Laura.

Charlie showed her his tablet.

"Ah I see. You know, since the enemy force outnumbers yours by one third but split into two groups, you should move all of your forces out of the town and engage one of the groups. The other enemy group wouldn't be able to reinforce their allies in time and would have to try to take the town while being slowed down by your automated defenses. You can then get your forces back to deal with them."

"Eh? Why didn't I see that? Divide and conquer!" Charlie thanked Laura for her solution.

"I guess your classes paid off," remarked Charlotte.

"Well, you two are the top students on the tests and quizzes. I'll give you two a hint on the next VR campaign mission your group will have by email."

"Why thank you," said Laura.

"No, I thank you two. Anyways, I have to leave now. I'm announcing a little contest afterschool today. See you." Charlie rushed out of the cafeteria just as the main group of students poured in.

_Afterwards, Charlie's room_

"Charlie, starting from now, you have a cousin," stated Bill solemnly in English over the communication feed.

"A cousin? I thought you were my only relative left uncle."

"Not really your cousin, but one who shares the same fate as you. MoA's order. A female operative based on our new project."

Charlie came to an understanding, one that could never be reached by any student or teacher at the academy if they overheard the conversation. One had to know very specific details in order to understand.

"What's her name?"

"Her name is… Artemis. She'll arrive the day after our announcement."

"…That's a fitting name. Very well, I'll inform Chifuyu Orimura. The request will be sent in advance by several days right."

"Correct, take care then Charlie, until our next meeting."

"Yes, uncle."

_Afterschool_,_ VR arena control room_

"Thanks for responding to my invitation guys," said Charlie. He was standing in front of a monitor while the rest of the group was sitting in chairs. The lights were dimmed.

"What's this contest about?" asked Ichika.

"Something that involves VR fighting. I'll let this trailer explain the rest." Charlie played the video. It was in Japanese.

"Let's hear it for the following sponsors," announced a female's voice. Several pieces of text appeared.

'A Metallic Studio production.'

'Built with DreamEngine 3.'

'Brought to you by Colossus Media Publishing.'

'Tournament arranged in coordination with the student council.'

'The prize:'

'A one on one romantic dinner with Ichika-kun.'

Whispers broke out in the group of girls.

"What! I never agreed to this!" yelled Ichika. He started to stand when two hands pushed him back down into the chair. Someone had managed to sneak up behind him during the opening of the video.

"Now now Ichika. The student council guaranteed this, you don't have anywhere to run," whispered Charlie's voice menacingly from behind Ichika's ear. "The winner's going to be announced on your birthday. So think of it as a birthday gift from me and the school, and just… enjoy the rest of the video."

Ichika froze. He almost couldn't believe the level of creepiness that the voice produced. He started sweating and stared straight ahead of the monitor.

'Video 1: The Scenario'

The sound of boots crunching on the densely backed snow as a group of silver armoured soldiers trekked through the blizzard. There were five of them, their faces obscured by white masks.

"We have to get into cover soon," muttered one.

"There should be a building up ahead," said another. There voices had a robotic vibe to them and didn't reveal their gender.

"Over there! I see it."

The building appeared to be a depilated high school building: grey against the white snow and sky.

For a second, a black figure with red eyes stared towards them from a third floor window.

"Did you see that?" The voice came from the rookie. The scene focuses on the group.

"What? It's just a building."

The rookie looked back. There was nothing in the window but darkness.

"Let's just get inside, I'm freezing out here."

The group broke through a window and climbed into a room. There was a fire pit filled with logs.

"How convenient."

Everyone sat around the pit while a soldier took out a match and lit it.

The chime of clock tower bells began to ring. The sound vibrating through out the entire building with remarkable loudness.

It startled them as it rang for seven times.

As the sound stopped, they saw through the window that grey clouds covered the sky. The frost found on the windowsill melted away as with all the snow.

"What on Earth?"

The door that they broke through was slammed open inwards by a strong wind. The fire went out as fog began to cover the outside. Blinding vision about twenty metres from the building. Mist danced along the ground, swirling around their boots as they stood up.

Outside, the snow had parted away to reveal concrete ground. The wind seemed to carry harsh whispers through the air. The sky had darkened to night; the clouds parted to reveal full moon lighting up the ground.

"What the… my sensors are going haywire?"

A soldier stared at his holographic information display. Numbers where rapidly changing, the electronic compass spinning in all directions.

"It's an anomaly," observed the leader.

"Eh guys, I think you should see this." It was the rookie; he had taken out his heavy assault rifle and pointed it nervously outside. The group rushed to take a look. A hoard of human figures emerged from the fog trundled slowly towards the building.

The leader magnified his vision and focused it on one of their faces. Grey flesh covered a human skull like patchwork.

"Shit! Walkers! All safeties off! Open fire!" exclaimed the leader. With a flash from his wrist, a pistol materialized in his hand as he fired on the hoard.

From the view of the outside, multitudes of high calibres poured into the crowd of walkers. Many fell and stopped shuffling, but many more creped closer to the defense.

"I can't raise command sir! Our communication's been jammed."

"Bring out the rockets!"

A soldier materialized a rocket launcher in his arms, opened the door, and ran to kneel a few feet away from the entrance. With a whoosh, a rocket flew into the crowd and blew up, destroying the majority of them. Everything disintegrated into ash.

"Is that all of them?"

An armoured truck pulled up, black uniformed armed figures walked out of it towards the building. The sign on their bullet proof vests read 'Polizia.'

"Polizia?" muttered the leader.

The guy who fired the rocket launcher called out to them. "You friendlies?"

"Wait a minute, there aren't any police around here." The leader aimed his rifle dead on at the closest approaching figure.

"Halt! Identify yourself."

"Sir?" asked the rookie with confusion.

The closest uniformed figure kept approaching, carrying a shotgun.

"Stop right now sir."

The soldier with the rocket launcher could see through the visor of the riot helmet. Red eyes appeared from within.

"Infiltrator!" he cried out.

All at once, the armed figures opened fire on the soldiers. The rocket soldier ran back inside, as all hell broke loose. The others provided covering fire. His shield energy level drained instantly down to 60% in the engagement.

"They're getting to close to the building."

The figures were advancing while firing in roles. Paying no attention to cover as several of them fell over.

"Charge men! Charge!" ordered the leader. The leader summoned a sabre in his right hand and rushed out the door. The others following behind as they closed the distance as fast as possible in order to mitigate the incoming damage.

There was a whack and the sound of crushing bones as one of the soldiers swung a double-armed war hammer around the side. The body was sent flying from the power energy imbued in the weapon.

The figures disintegrated as they were destroyed. After the last one fell, the sky changed back to its whiteness. Snow formed rapidly on the ground, and the wind was calm.

"Is it over?" asked one of the soldiers.

"Great, my shield energy level was getting low." The rookie started walking towards them. "It's a good thing we managed to…"

A black sword was shafted through his chest from behind and interrupted him. With a gasp, his body was lifted into the air.

"Shit!"

Everyone opened fire on the seemingly empty space behind the rookie; the bullets harmlessly sailing through the air. With a toss, the rookie was launched into the air and landed hard on the ground before them. Blood was pooling around the body, making red stains on the snow. Without a doubt, he was dead.

The soldiers aimed their weapons in all directions. There was a babble of voices.

"Contact!"

"My sensor's aren't picking up anything!"

"Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit."

"Quiet!"

It was the leader.

"You hear that?"

There were the sounds footsteps crunching on the snow. The camera pans to in front of the leader. Over his shoulder footprints started appearing: edging closer towards him.

With a whirl, the leader turned around directly behind him as a shadowy figure lunged towards him with a scream: revealing a carnivorous skull covered in black flames.

The screen went black. Flames started burning, forming words.

'Insurrection:'

'Arena'

'Video 2: 00:01:00'

The numbers started counting down from 60 seconds.

"Well…" That was all Charlotte could say of it.

"You can all go now if you want," said Charlie. "The tutorial video will be emailed to each of your inboxes as well as the entire school. The teams are made from six people, and you can make a maximum of two attempts. The one winner will be determined in the final survival round in the tournament." He turned on the lights and unlocked the door.

Ichika immediately ran out, leaving the rest of the girls behind. The girls formed a group huddle and made a mutual pact to form the ultimate team, whoever winning the final round claiming the prize.

_Weeks later, Chifuyu's office_

Chifuyu sat down to watch the live stream of the Valkyrian version of Defcon. Charlie had given her an e-ticket to watch it.

"For our first announcement of ArmsCon, Colossus R & D and Ergo Research have researched and engineered a new weapons system that will greatly complement Valkyria's existing arsenal. Manufactured by Hammer Industries, we present to you… the future," stated a female announcer.

The lights dimmed to allow a video to play.

"Under the Private Manufacturing Arms Act, Valkyria has seen 7 full years of development," stated a male voice. "Every year, another improvement. From the first Centurion II tanks to the V7 Panzerkampfwagon elite tanks, the face of modern warfare has changed many times, to an extent that those who remember the days of 20 years ago wouldn't recognize it. The technologies that resulted from this have also benefited the civilian sector tremendously. Today, we unveil another leap in technology engineered by our best and brightest from the labs of Colossus R & D and Ergo Research. This following test footage shows its first successful training deployment in a vehicular testing site."

The video showed a converted cargo yard. The camera panned up as a 'male' AI voice said, "Standby for battle walker deployment." An object fell off from the end of a heavy deployment cargo plane. It slammed down onto the ground. It was a very large mechanized suit that was in a squatting position.

"Oh crap," muttered Chifuyu. She started getting several text messages from all of her contacts at once.

The suit stood up; there was no 'head' on it. Instead, there was a heavily reinforced cockpit that had two arms and legs mounted to it.

"We present to you, the Reisig battle walker."

The battle suit raised its two hand manipulation arms outfitted with arm-mounted plasma Vulcan Gatling cannons. It was equipped with two single heavy energy calibre AGM launchers on its shoulders.

"Out fitted with the latest in Valkyrian weapon technology. The 7 metre single pilot Reisig battle walker represents the forefront of the next generation of military weapon systems."

The battle walker began walking on its two toed bipedal feet. It began absorbing plasma fire from a squad of legionnaires appearing from behind a cargo container. The shots dissipated on its hardened shields.

"Designed for vertical urban combat, the Reisig brings heavy weaponry to the second and third floors of buildings previously only accessible by infantry and light hover drones. It is designed to excel in environments that are hostile to main battle tanks, in which anti-tank infantry would fire their payloads from above."

The Vulcan Gatling cannons opened fire on the legionnaires. They got scrapped right away, pieces of metal flying everywhere. The rapid firing multi-barrelled plasma rail gun completely outperformed the damage that Laura's Schrawzer Regen was capable off, even during duel wielding.

"It can take strenuous damage from heavy cannons, combined from long distance viewing and multidirectional targeting provided by its elevated platform, enables it to counter any vehicles it meets on the battlefield."

Heavy plasma round tore a path through they air and hit the Titan. The EMP effect of the affect caused the Titan to be disabled for a second. A Centurion II tank was moving towards the Titan. The Titan recovered quickly and fired two missiles at it.

The tank almost immediately blew up; the detonation blast of the tank's nanocore engulfing all legionnaires and the cargo containers in an explosion of violent plasmatic energy.

"While its non-hover based locomotion system prevents it from traversing over water, it has an advantage in traversing very steep terrain as it can jump and climb."

The battle walker jumped onto a stack of special heavy-duty cargo containers designed to carry its immense weight. It targeted a drop ship in the air and quickly made short work of it.

"Of course, like all high profile vehicles, the Reisig would remain vulnerable against low profile tanks and SPGs in open areas, thus another version of the battle walker had to be created."

Another battle walker, much smaller and about the size of an IS was dropped into the arena. This version wielded a standard rail rifle on one arm, a heavy laser MG on the other, and a single shoulder mounted light energy calibre AGM launcher. The pilot was more vulnerable in this one, needing a helmet to protect the head.

"Meet the Bogatyr battle walker. Designed for use as an elite infantry unit, it carries a heavy hover propulsion pack, allowing it to engage the enemy on both land, air, and sea."

To demonstrate, it flew into the air and joined a squad of Sturmtruppen; shooting down a remarkable number of target drones that flew around. The missiles fired could split apart and target multiple drones at once. As the last remaining drone splintered down to the ground, the footage cut off here.

"However, these types of walkers don't only have applications in military technology." The screen switched to artist concept drawings. "Deep sea rescue missions, construction work, space exploration, and many other practical applications will change the way that the normal Valkyrian citizen experiences life. As such, the nation of Valkyria is proud to announce that a brand new job sector of walker pilots will be needed in the near future. Training academies for pilot certifications will become operable by the end of the year." The Hammer Industries logo came up as the video concluded. "Hammer Industries: Bringing the future… home."

The crowd erupted into applause. Chifuyu ignored the rest of the e-conference as she messaged back to each of her clients. One single message stood out from the rest:

'It has begun.'


	9. Chapter 6-5 - The Rules of the Game

_This chapter is a decimal point because it's another staller section more then anything else. It doesn't advance the plot in any way, but it will give you insight into the tournament's mechanics._

**Infinite Stratos: Rise of the Valkyries Chapter 6.5 – The Rules of The Game**

_Tournament video_

'Video 2: The Rules'

"Hi, this is Michael, play tester and guide of Insurrection: Arena. I'm joined here by my friends and co-testers Rin and Yuki."

"Hi."

"Hello."

"Now that we've introduced ourselves, it's time to inform you all of the tournament's rules. Players must play in teams of five, and five only. You have to sign up your team by the due date listed on the electronic sign up sheets sent to your email. Forms of consent are also required for all participants, which must be handed in to the tournament coordinators. In the arena, the Holographic Training Modules MUST be kept on the contestant's IS at all times from the beginning of the game until the end. Teams can play two times only, with the higher score submitted. On the event of hardware of software problems, the game will pause, and if crashed, will load the last checkpoint that auto saves at the end of each round. Should the entire save file be corrupted, the team will start again from the last round they were on and will be awarded points for their missing rounds based on a curved line. Injuries will result in an automatic suspension of play, and contestants will make decisions with the tournament referee."

"Can I speak?"

"Sure Yuki."

"Now that the team rules are finished, let's start on the mechanics of the game. Now, being a team of three and not being IS pilots. This is certainly not fully representative of your experience in the game."

The field changed into the grey foggy ground of the school building seen in the trailer.

"Each IS will have a limited amount of energy given to them per round for shields and weapons. At the end of the round, that energy will be restored. There is also a ranking system, which will allow the contestant to become more powerful as the waves become more difficult each round. You will notice that you initially start with not being able to use any of your IS weapons or abilities except your most basic weapon. For example, a person whose base weapon is a sword, but have rail guns attached to their ISs won't be able to use that rail gun and will be forced to start with a sword. After gaining a certain amount of experience points, you will level up and be able to select the next unlock. In addition to that, your weapon and shield energy meters will also increase by a set amount. For balance, in the first eight rounds, you cannot fly higher than four meters. There are in total, twenty rounds, rotating from un-dead, possessed, shadow, and machine. Every fourth round is a special: offering a unique challenge."

"Joooiiiin us," came a deep echoing voice that vibrated across the entire arena.

"And that would signal the first wave approaching."

Out of the fog, a horde of zombies dressed in WWI German uniforms appeared. They shambled towards the group.

"Well, we only have enough energy for two laser pistol magazines each, so we better make each shot count."

Laser rounds beamed out of the laser pistols that the group held. Michael ran back to a trashcan sitting beside the doorway and threw aside the lid.

"As you would expect, zombies have to be shot in the head before being killed. A shot to anywhere else would just probably blow off a limb, allowing it to continue shambling. Headshots are worth 100 while hits anywhere else are worth 10 points. Michael, I believe, is searching for one of the many disposable items that can be found."

"Found it!" interrupted Michael. He came back with a grenade, removed the pin, and threw it deep into the horde. Everyone rushed back inside the building for cover as it exploded, flinging shrapnel everywhere and decapitating a few zombies. The majority however, were reduced to 'crawlers'.

The group spent their remaining clips on them."

"Energy can be saved and is stackable. The energy must be refilled by standing next to an energy crate and putting your hand on it for 5 seconds."

On cue, a female electronic voice reported, "Energy crate dropped." A glowing blue crate appeared in the courtyard. The group rushed over to it and placed their hands on it for a moment before pulling away from it.

"The energy crate disappears at the start of the next round. And you will only have 60 seconds in between them. Now, by calling out 'System Upgrades' a holographic menu will appear in front of you, allowing you to choose your next upgrades. In this case, I'll choose the ability to use my power claymore sword."

"Halt or die!" shouted another voice: the signal for the next wave. Two armoured trucks broke through the metal gates of the courtyard and possessed shotgun wielding troops came out of them. The group hastily retreated into the building as the enemy took cover behind the low stonewalls that outlined the courtyard. They were met with suppressive fire from Michael's MG92.

"The good news about possessed is that they do have moral mechanics built into them. Heavy suppression fire or losses can cause them to become pinned, lower their fighting ability, and may cause them to rout," continued Yuki.

"Now you're probably wondering what happens if your energy shields are reduced to zero. Rin, can you do the honours?"

Rin begrudgingly walked out of the building and allowed herself to get shot multiple times. She fell to the floor as the electronic announcer said, "A fellow comrade has been downed." She was stuck there and couldn't move.

"Fallen teammates have to be revived by holding them for ten seconds. They can't move, but you can drag them back." Yuki ran out and pulled Rin back inside the building, holding her until Rin could get up and walk again.

"After revival, health is restored to full, but energy is reduced to 50% of maximum capacity."

A watch alarm beeped. Michael cleared his throat and spoke, "I guess that's all we have for the demo. You will find many accessible areas that unlock after certain rounds as well as usable items and maybe a few Easter eggs. Hope you enjoy the tournament."

The video ended with the title appearing and fading away.

_With this many chapters, it's becoming harder and harder to maintain continuity, so it will be helpful if you guys could notify me of any errors I make. I don't want to have a Watson injury effect to happen. Also, let it be known that I'm going to basically not mention Madoka Orimura at all, since I have no idea what's going to happen to her. So you can invent your own thing for what happens: dead, jailed, anything that doesn't include the possibility of her somehow living in coexistence with the rest of the family. Therefore, __if she ends up somehow living with Chifuyu and Ichika normally in the canonical story, then this fanfiction removes that._


	10. Valkyrian Files: Divisions

**Valkyrian Files: Divisions**

Valkyria boasts the most technologically advanced army in the world. It's infantry are equipped with energy weapons and have access to the largest drone force in history (not including Legionnaires). Outnumbering the drone count of the United States by 3:1. Estimations have shown that due to nanoprinting techniques in production, the logistical capability for warfare of the Valkyrian state is on par or greater than the entire logistical capacity of the United States. While Valkyrians haven't performed actual combat in the world of IS since their arrival, the demonstrations shown at ArmsCon has shown that it is a true world power. The divisions are made up of people from all backgrounds due to the assimilation of multiple world militaries into one central command structure during the Valkyrian war against the 'Murlocs,' also known as the Apocalypse by the civilian population born before the war.

**Army**

_Grenadier_

Infantry equipped with rail plasma light arms and light AGMs.

_Mechanized Grenadier_

Infantry equipped with laser light arms and light AGMs, accompanying armour divisions.

_Legion_

Autonomous robotic infantry equipped with rail plasma light arms and light AGMs.

_Support_

Division that is responsible for supply transportation, provision of engineers, and AA vehicles.

_Armour_

Self-explanatory. Equipped with rail plasma heavy arms and medium AGMs.

_Artillery_

Self-explanatory. Equipped with rail plasma heavy arms and heavy AGMs.

_Ranger_

Special forces equipped with all light arms. Used for first contact direct engagements. Origin is from pre-war US Army Rangers.

_Commando_

Special forces equipped with all light arms. Used for indirect engagements, both conventional (ex. raids) and unconventional (ex. guerrilla warfare).

_Titan_

Titan pilots equipped with laser light arms, light AGMs, and of course, Titans. Considered special forces.

_Ground Drone Divisions_

**Navy**

_Marine_

Amphibious infantry equipped with all light arms.

_Kriegsmarine_

Special amphibious forces equipped with all light arms.

_Fleet Divisions_

_Drone Fleet Divisions_

_Navy Air Fleet Divisions_

_Navy Air Drone Divisions_

**Airforce**

_Airborne_

Paratrooper infantry equipped with glide wing suits and parachutes that enter the battlefield via tactical air insertion.

_Air Fleet Divisions_

_Air Drone Divisions_

**Praetorian Guard (Lord Minister's Forces)**

_Honour Guard_

Infantry charged with protecting the Lord Minister and the cabinet; similar to Japanese Imperial Guard, except in slightly larger numbers. Equipped with laser light arms.

_Panzer_

Elite armour. Equipped with same arms as regular armour divisions.

_Sturmtruppen_

Special forces equipped with jet packs and all light arms. Mainly used for direct engagements as shock troops. Information on how its members are chosen is kept top secret.


End file.
